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Asset growth is a factor that gets some attention, but not nearly as much as other more mainstream factors like price to earnings, earnings growth, etc. 

Energy looks cheaper and appears much more washed out from a sentiment perspective. Contrarians looking for commodity exposure should favor this sector over Materials. 

We think interest rates will stay low for an extended period of time, so the key question is, when will rates start rising?

A “dozen” major market measures have moved to new bull market highs in the last three months. But many of these have been the groups that do best when “risk” is “off,” and may be a reason “Ain’t Nobody Happy,” even in an up year. 

We have chosen to have the original MTI “subsume” many critical global measures, and put all of our best efforts into a single tool monitoring the overall stock market environment.

We’ve published a series of research notes detailing our thoughts on the Health Care sector in Emerging Asia and formed a thematic group “Asia Healthy Tigers.” Even though most of the investable companies in Emerging Market Health Care are located in Asia, we decided to expand to other regions as well. 

Two groups were purchased in the Select Industries portfolio in late October: Health Care Services and Wireless Telecommunication Services.

Correlations have been extremely elevated over the past few years when compared to historical levels. The question is, which parts of the market has this impacted the most?

We see a strong and clear Poor-Value/Strong-Momentum pattern emerging, which could indicate a looming market top. While QE3 could disrupt it, the pattern looks unmistakable.

The stock market wealth effect has been direct and pronounced. But it’s been wearing off, with the subsequent rally after each Fed stimulus weaker than the previous one.

The S&P 500 is now up 30% from last year’s October 4th low - a rally that surely ranks among the least enjoyable and least exploited gain of that magnitude in history.

The U.S. bull market is mature and I believe the odds are better than even that 2013 will see a cyclical top.

We can’t imagine what good could come from Ben Bernanke’s September 13th decision to resume money printing. What is the Fed going to do if another risk event hits and the S&P goes down 15-20%? Pray?

There are twelve critical indexes (using Big Ten math) that have failed to “confirm” September’s new cyclical bull market highs in the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrials.

Is it time to reverse the “long U.S. consumer/short China” trade?

Those adopting LDI today are doing so at the least opportune time in more than 60 years.

Our latest testing indicates that relative dollar stability provides the best backdrop for stocks.

A textbook, commodity-like top in gold would be a panicky, spiky event that would take the metal well above $2000.

Our Stock Quality Ranking work currently shows stocks with low quality rankings outperforming those with high quality rankings.

A preview of a forthcoming In Focus Special Study that examines the opportunities - both domestic and global - in the groups involved with processing credit card transactions.