Latest Research

The Industrial Metals equities group has been very disappointing over the past three months, especially given May’s rally in the broad equity market.

Leuthold outlines three conditions for “fixing” Social Security: Increased Retirement Age, Index Benefits To Price Index, and Means Testing.

The YTD performance gap between large caps and small caps continues to widen.

As contrarians, we have been looking for an opportunity to establish holdings in this down and out equity group. May GS Scores finally ranked it as Attractive for the first time since July 2003.

Looking at the last five quarters’ S&P 500 income statements.

This month, Eric Bjorgen presents a unique take on stock market valuations, by determining how many barrels of oil it takes to buy one unit of the S&P 500. Based on the historical relationship, the stock market is not overvalued versus oil.

VIX was a hot topic in April, as investors saw the increased volatility as a sign the market was poised to rally. Our long term studies of the VIX, results in us cautioning investors about reading too much into the recent move in this volatility index.

A comparison of the performance of the current stock market recovery to the monthly performance averages of past recoveries (1900 to date).

The current expansion is below the average pace of a typical expansion.

U.S. market ranks as fifth most expensive market based on comparisons to 44 countries from around the world.

In Steve Leuthold’s 2005 ‘Outlook’, he called for a strengthening of the Dollar vs. the Euro in 2005, with the Dollar/Euro exchange rate hitting 1.16 before year end. So far, the dollar has made good progress towards achieving that target.

This is the first month of net redemptions in eight months, the last time being the month of August 2004.

The Industrial Metals equity group continued to sell off in April, dropping 10.5% on the heels of –6.1% return in March.

Today, the yield curve has flattened but has not yet inverted. The economy may be in for a soft patch, but there are no signs of recession yet.

Historical tracking of our multi-factor valuation model.

Steve presents some his very long term worries. These include debilitating and dangerous inflation, run away government spending, and an impending crush of personal debt.

Market is very oversold after the March decline, and a near term rally is expected soon.

Based on study of bear market recoveries dating back to 1900, the third year of the recovery is typically not strong. However, this current recovery has lagged the normal recoveries in terms of performance.

2004 earnings very strong but further earnings improvements in 2005 will be largely a function of stronger sales, not any more margin expansions.

With oil and gas prices continuing to make new highs, we thought it would be helpful to put some perspective on rising energy prices.