Latest Research

Defying the industrials sector slump.

These bonds were quite stable during the credit sell-off in November and they remain good candidates for earning the carry.

The index ticked up on the back of higher VIX, a High Yield credit mini sell-off, and EM underperformance. We are turning a bit more cautious toward credit but still recommend safe spreads within fixed income.

The calm appearance of the 10-year yield masked a big curve-flattening move that has accelerated the last few months.

Read this week's Major Trend Index.

Momentum has had a terrific year relative to all other quant factors, but Wednesday’s action forewarns of the mayhem that will likely accompany the eventual rotation out of Momentum (and Growth) and into Value stocks.

See this week's Major Trend Index.

While there are certainly some performance disparities within the U.S. stock market, there’s no way we can argue (even if we’d like to) that it has become too selective.

Years ago, Monty Python’s classic comedy sketch introduced us to the Department of Redundancy Department.

Read this week's Major Trend Index.

In mid December an Interim Memo was sent advising clients of a negative change in our Early Warning Index, an indication that an intermediate top was forming. It has been about four weeks since that alert and the work has continued negative.

In 2010 and 2011, we were sometimes chastised for not paying more attention to exploding federal  deficits, which at the time were running between 8% to 10% of GDP. We argued that a substantial share of these budget shortfalls was cyclical in nature, and would eventually be reversed by an improving economy.

Market history teaches us that investors behave differently in groups than they do as individuals.

The Leuthold Core Portfolio slightly lagged the S&P 500, while the Leuthold Global Portfolio narrowly outperformed the MSCI ACWI during October.

This multi-factor estimate of stock market risk is based on a regression to median stock market levels.

Read this week's Major Trend Index.

Starting back in the early 1990s, The Leuthold Group began constructing and sending out an annual list of stocks that appeared to have been the subject of unusual selling pressure late in the year.

In March 1991, an article titled “Investor Sentiment and the Closed-End Fund Puzzle” was published in The Journal of Finance.