Latest Research

The end of August means the second quarter earnings season is almost in the books.

Read this week's Major Trend Index.

With this week’s losses, Small Caps have relinquished all of the massive outperformance they enjoyed in the month following the presidential election.

Read this week's Major Trend Index.

Many studies have evaluated momentum factors for over/underweighting country exposures within a portfolio, but few have considered valuation factors for country rotation within the Emerging Market space.

The great mystery behind the trade-weighted dollar’s nearly-10% YTD decline is that it’s failed to fuel further gains (or any gains) in commodity prices in 2017.

Given our money management mantra of “making it and keeping it,” we can’t imagine we’ll ever get comfortable with crypto-currencies.

Last year’s “low-risk” BUY signals from our Very Long Term (VLT) Momentum algorithm have proven very profitable, but enough time has elapsed that they should no longer be considered an important bullish factor.

The stock market has a tendency to lay an egg during years ending in “7,” specifically during the late summer and fall… ‘Year Seven’ also tends to see a massive volatility spike…

Is stock market volatility so low that it’s a bad thing? For volatility sellers, the answer is an unequivocal yes. But for stock market investors, the answer isn’t so clear.

Does the last few weeks’ stumble in the Dow Jones Transportation Average foretell anything sinister? Not on the face of it.

Last month we spent a full page explaining why the underperformance of the S&P 500 High Beta Index was not a bearish portent for stocks (Chart 1).

The S&P 500 and DJIA were up 10-11% on the year through early August—solid, but not quite the “melt-up” scenario we’d envisioned earlier this year…We think S&P 500 2,550-2,600 will be achieved, but not until year-end…

Through early August, the S&P 500 had matched last year’s total return gain of 12%, while futures on that index have gained more than 20% from their after-hours lows made on election night.

Relative performance of active and passive mutual funds is one of the leading story lines in our industry, with passive’s recent advantage leading some to argue that it will be the dominant style forevermore. We disagree, and believe that the active/passive relationship has been, and always will be, cyclical.

Both the Leuthold Core Portfolio and the Leuthold Global Portfolio slightly trailed their all-equity benchmarks during July.

Based on 1957-to-date valuation metrics, the S&P 500 potential downside to median levels is -25%. Secular bear markets, however, fall well below median levels; based on a decline to the 25th percentile of 1957-to-date distributions, the S&P 500 would have to fall 36% to 1,591 (not a prediction).

Read this week's Major Trend Index.

Airlines, Life & Health Insurance, and Household Durables are among the month’s intriguing opportunities based on the current Group Selection (GS) Scores.

Industry trends and the investment merits of companies involved in the asset management business; we contrast ETF providers with firms involved in traditional active management.