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The Russell 2000’s 4% outperformance over the S&P 500 in February narrowed the discount back to its 12-month average.

Our Up/Down ratio is 1.54—the second consecutive “two-month” figure coming in right at the long-term average. This vignette’s message remains consistent: For earnings growth, the boom-time off of pandemic lows has come to an end.

Energy, Financials, and Information Technology remain at the top of our sector scores. Real Estate made the largest advance as it moved from the 11th ranking to 8th. Communication Services has now dropped to sit among the bottom three (9th spot), joining Consumer Discretionary and Industrials at 10th and 11th, respectively.

It’s that time again when S&P and MSCI reevaluate the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) to determine if any changes are warranted. We have a more vested interest in these changes than most, as GICS is the backbone for our industry structure that feeds into the Group Selection (GS) Scores.

The Energy sector has improved across a variety of factor subsets, with particularly large jumps in growth and macro/economic categories. For investors weighing investment ideas in the Energy space, we highlight the three Attractive groups for consideration.

Despite continued weakness in equities and a higher reading in our Risk Aversion Index (RAI), it generated a “Lower-Risk” signal.

The U.S. 10/2-year curve just fell below the key threshold of 50 bps. Over the last 25 years, the yield curve proceeded to invert after this “Rubicon” was crossed. That doesn’t mean imminent trouble. The lead time of a yield-curve signal is lengthy, but it—and real yields—definitely warrant close monitoring.

Read this week's Major Trend Index update

Well before the war drums in Eastern Europe began to beat, this stock market correction had already been marching to a different beat. The market’s confusion might be understandable, because—unlike during most of the post-GFC corrections—it has so far failed to “self-medicate!”

A persistent feature of stock market declines in the past 13 years has been that they have typically triggered a simultaneous falloff in bond yields.

Read this week's Major Trend.

Mystery writers are fond of creating misdirection by introducing multiple eyewitnesses that each describe the crime differently. This plot device confuses the storyline until a clever detective comes forward to unravel the conflicting evidence and solve the mystery. 

This scenario played out in style returns for 2021, as shown in Table. Our first witness is a large cap manager who tracks the S&P 500 and reports another banner year for Growth, its seventh win in the last ten years. Our second observer is a small cap manager who watches the broader market and tells of Value’s excellent year. Meanwhile, our third bystander is an international manager tracking EAFE, who reports seeing a whole lotta’ nothing in the style derby last year. In this study, we channel our inner Hercule Poirot to determine what, in fact, did happen across domestic style returns in 2021.

It’s probably about high time that we check in with our past and present members of the esteemed 4% Club. 

Read this week's Major Trend.

It’s been a year since the retail crowd on WallStreetBets—a Reddit forum—banded together to “stick it to the shorts.” The event was short-lived, but the effects are still being felt throughout the market.

It’s probably about high time that we check in with our past and present members of the esteemed 4% Club. For those of you not familiar with this vignette: back in the day, achieving a 4% weight in the S&P 500 had been a rare feat, occurring only during periods of extreme enthusiasm for technology, conglomerates or oil. The blessing of membership soon turned into a curse, with most taking just a cup of coffee behind the velvet ropes before being thrown to the curb because of dramatic underperformance to the rest of the Index. Our two most recent inductees seem to be following the proper established Club protocol for not lingering at the party too long. The two other members, however, have been receiving their mail at the Club for quite some time.

Read this week's Major Trend update. 

In an effort to manage stock market risk, we monitor reams of data relating to the economy, earnings, Fed policy, and investor sentiment, along with technical indicators of all stripes. But for the rare occasions when upside price action seems practically uncapped, it’s hard to beat pure price action if one is inclined to play along.

Lofty valuations amid shrinking liquidity conditions make all risky assets vulnerable.

The market has started to price in a much faster pace of the Fed’s tightening this year. We have found more similarities than differences between recent market action and the historical patterns around the first rate hike.

It’s been so long since investors have faced a serious Fed tightening episode that they may have forgotten a helpful rule of thumb: An initial hike in the fed funds rate is usually a good excuse to dump some Consumer Discretionary stocks.