Sunday, March 17, 2024

The stealth breakout you may have missed

Preface: Explaining our market timing models 
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Asset Allocation Model is an asset allocation model that applies trend-following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity prices. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. The performance and full details of a model portfolio based on the out-of-sample signals of the Trend Model can be found here.


My inner trader uses a trading model, which is a blend of price momentum (is the Trend Model becoming more bullish, or bearish?) and overbought/oversold extremes (don't buy if the trend is overbought, and vice versa). Subscribers receive real-time alerts of model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of the email alerts is updated weekly here. The hypothetical trading record of the trading model of the real-time alerts that began in March 2016 is shown below.


The latest signals of each model are as follows:

  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities (Last changed from “sell” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trend Model signal: Bullish (Last changed from “neutral” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trading model: Neutral (Last changed from “bullish” on 24-Jan-2024)*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends. I am also on X/Twitter at @humblestudent. Subscribers receive real-time alerts of trading model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of those email alerts is shown here.

Subscribers can access the latest signal in real time here.
 

A convincing breakout at 2100

My recent publication highlighting the opportunity in gold mining stocks worked out better than expected (see How gold miners could be a refuge from the YOLO and FOMO frenzy). The gold miners’ ETF (GDX) is up slightly over 10% in under two weeks.

While GDX may be a little extended in the short run, I would like to point out the long-term potential in gold. Gold has staged a convincing upside breakout from a multi-month cup and handle formation. Moreover, the gold-to-S&P 500 ratio (bottom panel) is turning up from a multi-year saucer-shaped bottom, indicating the possible start of a new relative bull for gold over stocks. As well, the breakout has occurred with little fanfare as investors have been focused on AI and GLP-1 plays. This combination of breakout and lack of public participation suggests a substantial upside potential.

 
 The full post can be found here.

Friday, March 15, 2024

A reply to Grantham's AI warning

Well-known value investor Jeremy Grantham recently penned an essay titled, “The Great Paradox of the U.S. Market”, in which he warned, “Prices reflect near perfection yet today’s world is particularly imperfect and dangerous”.

In particular, he sounded the alarm over the bubble in AI stocks and cited the Gartner Hype Cycle as the main reason for caution:
 
But every technological revolution like this – going back from the internet to telephones, railroads, or canals – has been accompanied by early massive hype and a stock market bubble as investors focus on the ultimate possibilities of the technology, pricing most of the very long-term potential immediately into current market prices. And many such revolutions are in the end often as transformative as those early investors could see and sometimes even more so – but only after a substantial period of disappointment during which the initial bubble bursts. Thus, as the most remarkable example of the tech bubble, Amazon led the speculative market, rising 21 times from the beginning of 1998 to its 1999 peak, only to decline by an almost inconceivable 92% from 2000 to 2002, before inheriting half the retail world!


As much as I respect Grantham’s investment insights, he suffers from the value investor problem of being too early and overly reliant on valuation for his views. I reiterate my view that it’s still early in the bull cycle for AI stocks (see The Path to Magnificent Exuberance). Here’s why.
 
The full post can be found here.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Waiting for the recycle amidst an elevated tail-risk backdrop

Mid-week market update: Marketwatch recently highlighted analysis from NDR which concluded that sentiment was extended and while it may make sense to be cautious about adding risk, it's too early to turn tactically bearish until readings recycle from an overbought condition.
 

I agree. I've been saying the same thing for several weeks. A correction or pullback is on the horizon, but hasn't arrived yet. While signs of technical deterioration are appearing, a sideways consolidation marked by a rolling correction is very possible.
 
Here are the indicators that I've been watching, some of which have recycled and some have not.

The full post can be found here.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

A Hindenburg Moment for growth stocks?

Preface: Explaining our market timing models 
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Asset Allocation Model is an asset allocation model that applies trend-following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity prices. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. The performance and full details of a model portfolio based on the out-of-sample signals of the Trend Model can be found here.


My inner trader uses a trading model, which is a blend of price momentum (is the Trend Model becoming more bullish, or bearish?) and overbought/oversold extremes (don't buy if the trend is overbought, and vice versa). Subscribers receive real-time alerts of model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of the email alerts is updated weekly here. The hypothetical trading record of the trading model of the real-time alerts that began in March 2016 is shown below.
 

The latest signals of each model are as follows:

  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities (Last changed from “sell” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trend Model signal: Bullish (Last changed from “neutral” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trading model: Neutral (Last changed from “bullish” on 24-Jan-2024)*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends. I am also on X/Twitter at @humblestudent. Subscribers receive real-time alerts of trading model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of those email alerts is shown here.

Subscribers can access the latest signal in real time here.
 

NASDAQ Hindenburg warnings

I have been concerned about the extended and frothy nature of the advance in growth stocks. Worries came to a head when the Semiconductors Index rallied through and reversed though an upward trending relative performance channel, indicating a possible blow-off top. Beneath the hood, however, market internals are signaling breadth deterioration for NASDAQ stocks that warn of an impending corrective downdraft.


The ominous sounding but controversial Hindenburg Omen was designed by James Miekka to spot major market tops, though it purportedly only has many false positives and a success rate of 25%. The indicator looks for the combination of an increasingly bifurcated market, as measured by breadth divergences, and a downside momentum break from an uptrend.

NASDAQ stocks have been flashing Hindenburg Omens starting in January and the warnings continued into February. While the signal isn’t perfect, the history of such clusters in the last 10 years has usually resolved in declines, shown as pink bars), while the instances of false positives (grey bars) have been relatively low.


The full post can be found here.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Doesn't Fed policy matter to stocks anymore?

During Fed Chair Powell’s testimony to the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, he said that it will likely be appropriate to begin cutting rates “at some point this year”. At the same time, he reiterated the message that other Fed officials sent to the markets that the Fed is not ready yet. The messaging has been the same and uniform by almost all speeches by Fed officials. The economy and labour market are strong. Central bankers have time to wait for more evidence that inflation is headed back to the 2% goal before cutting rates.

Market expectations of the timing of the initial rate cut have evolved from March to May in the past few weeks. At the same time, stock prices have rallied and they rallied in response to Powell’s testimony. 
 
Doesn’t Fed policy matter to stocks anymore?
 

The full post can be found here.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Mind the gaps

Mid-week market update: In the short run, how the market reacts after price gaps can be important clues to market psychology and direction. How quickly the market fills a gap is a measure of either strength or weakness.
 
As accompanying hourly chart of the S&P 500 shows, we have price gaps everywhere (upside gaps in grey, downside gap in pink). In particular, the price gap in reaction to the NVIDIA earnings report sticks out the most.


Here is how I interpret the gaps.

The full post can be found here.

Monday, March 4, 2024

How gold miners could be a refuge from the YOLO and FOMO frenzy

I wrote yesterday that the stock market has been gripped by a YOLO (You Only Live Once) and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) madness. I can suggest a possible refuge: gold and gold miners.

Gold prices recently made a fresh high last week, but the breakout was not decisive to be judged as unabashedly bullish for the yellow metal. The technical pattern was nevertheless highly constructive as it’s tracing out a possible cup and handle formation. In addition, the inflation expectations ETF (RINF), which measures 30-year bond market inflation expectations, is upward sloping and confirms gold’s uptrend.

 The full post can be found here.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

How to trade the YOLO and FOMO market

Preface: Explaining our market timing models 
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Asset Allocation Model is an asset allocation model that applies trend-following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity prices. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. The performance and full details of a model portfolio based on the out-of-sample signals of the Trend Model can be found here.


My inner trader uses a trading model, which is a blend of price momentum (is the Trend Model becoming more bullish, or bearish?) and overbought/oversold extremes (don't buy if the trend is overbought, and vice versa). Subscribers receive real-time alerts of model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of the email alerts is updated weekly here. The hypothetical trading record of the trading model of the real-time alerts that began in March 2016 is shown below.
 

The latest signals of each model are as follows:

  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities (Last changed from “sell” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trend Model signal: Bullish (Last changed from “neutral” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trading model: Neutral (Last changed from “bullish” on 24-Jan-2024)*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends. I am also on X/Twitter at @humblestudent. Subscribers receive real-time alerts of trading model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of those email alerts is shown here.

Subscribers can access the latest signal in real time here.
 

A YOLO and FOMO market

Another week, another all-time high for the S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite. The U.S. market has been infected with the FOMO (You Only Live Once) and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) sentiment viruses while numerous macro and technical warnings have appeared.

As an example, Bitcoin prices have soared. Historically, Bitcoin has been correlated with the relative performance of the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), which is a bellwether for speculative growth stocks. This time, ARKK hasn’t risen as much. Is this a positive or negative divergence?

 
The full post can be found here.

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Are you ready to be a contrarian cigar butt investor?

How would you feel about a star value manager with the track record shown in the chart below. While he beat the market in the wake of the dot-com bubble, he has only matched the performance of the S&P 500 since 2011. To be sure, he did beat his style benchmark (second panel).
 
The star manager is none other than the legendary Warren Buffett and the chart shows the relative performance of Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price relative to the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000 Value Index. Buffett’s best known recent win was his purchase of Apple in 2016 which became his largest holding, and whose relative returns are shown in the bottom panel.

 
I examine how he achieved his results, and offer studies of sources of alpha as examples of different investing styles.

The full post can be found here.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

How extended is this market?

Mid-week market update: I have said before that the stock market is extended in its advance and it could pull back at any time. How extended? Here is another metric.
 
Bollinger Bands (BB) are overbought/oversold indicators. If a stock or index rises above its 2 standard deviation BB. it is said to be overbought. Standard calculations of BBs are based on a 20 dma. It's unusual to see the market rise up above its upper 200 dma BB. The S&P 500 recently reached 110% above of its upper BB. The history of such episodes (pink bars) show that it usually pulls back soon afterwards. There were only two exceptions since 1997 when the market experienced a sustained uptrend (shown by arrows).


 
The full post can be found here.

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Did the NVIDIA-fueled rally exhaust the bulls?

Preface: Explaining our market timing models 
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Asset Allocation Model is an asset allocation model that applies trend-following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity prices. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. The performance and full details of a model portfolio based on the out-of-sample signals of the Trend Model can be found here.


My inner trader uses a trading model, which is a blend of price momentum (is the Trend Model becoming more bullish, or bearish?) and overbought/oversold extremes (don't buy if the trend is overbought, and vice versa). Subscribers receive real-time alerts of model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of the email alerts is updated weekly here. The hypothetical trading record of the trading model of the real-time alerts that began in March 2016 is shown below.
 

The latest signals of each model are as follows:

  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities (Last changed from “sell” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trend Model signal: Bullish (Last changed from “neutral” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trading model: Neutral (Last changed from “bullish” on 24-Jan-2024)*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends. I am also on X/Twitter at @humblestudent. Subscribers receive real-time alerts of trading model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of those email alerts is shown here.

Subscribers can access the latest signal in real time here.


NVIDIA’s week

The main market focus of last week was NVIDIA. Anticipation was building ahead of the company’s earnings report and option positioning was extremely bullish. In the end, the bulls were rewarded by a blowout report. NVIDIA’s stock surged and pulled the market up with it.

However, the advance was marred by poor internals. The rally in the S&P 500 took it to the top of its Bollinger Band, but it’s rare that upper BB rides are accompanied by negative RSI divergences and poor participation. Moreover, it’s unusual to see the market rally to an all-time high with the NASDAQ Summation Index flat when it should have been a source of strength.
 
 
The full post can be found here.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

The path to Magnificent Exuberance

Signs of technical deteriorations had been appearing last week, but NVIDIA’s earnings report saved the day. The earnings report can best be described as a blowout. The results beat Street expectations on all metrics and the company guided upwards. There wasn’t anything not to dislike about the report. As a consequence, the Semiconductor Index, which is a bellwether for artificial intelligence (AI) related plays, rallied strongly after briefly testing the lower bound of its absolute and relative return rising channels.


Even though some excesses are appearing, I reiterate my view that the AI bubble has far more room to run before it reaches the phase of Magnificent Exuberance (see Why this AI bull is nothing like the NASDAQ in 2000).

The full post can be found here.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

NVIDIA at the bat

Mid-week market update: The poem "Casey at the Bat" may represent an apt analogy for today's stock market (see Wikipedia entry if you're unfamiliar with it). Technical warnings signs had been appearing. The S&P 500, the NASDAQ 100, and the Semiconductors Index, which is a bellwether for AI-related plays, had all weakened and violated their 10 dma. Even the Russell 2000 small cap index, which is largely unrelated to AI market factors, weakened below its 10 dma. 


 
Much like the story in the poem, it was up to Casey (NVDIA), mighty Casey (NVIDIA) to pull the team out at the end.
 
The full post can be found here.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Are negative divergences necessarily bearish?

Preface: Explaining our market timing models 
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Asset Allocation Model is an asset allocation model that applies trend-following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity prices. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. The performance and full details of a model portfolio based on the out-of-sample signals of the Trend Model can be found here.


My inner trader uses a trading model, which is a blend of price momentum (is the Trend Model becoming more bullish, or bearish?) and overbought/oversold extremes (don't buy if the trend is overbought, and vice versa). Subscribers receive real-time alerts of model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of the email alerts is updated weekly here. The hypothetical trading record of the trading model of the real-time alerts that began in March 2016 is shown below.

The latest signals of each model are as follows:

  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities (Last changed from “sell” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trend Model signal: Bullish (Last changed from “neutral” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trading model: Neutral (Last changed from “bullish” on 24-Jan-2024)*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends. I am also on X/Twitter at @humblestudent. Subscribers receive real-time alerts of trading model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of those email alerts is shown here.

Subscribers can access the latest signal in real time here.



Divergences everywhere

From a technical perspective, divergences may not matter in the short term, but long-term divergences are particularly worrisome. 

The accompanying chart shows a series of long-term divergences that are concerning. Even as the S&P 500 rallied to all-time highs, the NYSE Advance-Decline Line did not confirm the fresh high. The relative performance of high beta to low volatility stocks, which is an indicator of equity risk appetite, is barely testing its overhead resistance. In the meantime, the 10-year Treasury yield (inverted scale) has been climbing and higher yields offer an increasingly more attractive alternative for investors. And the USD, which is historically inversely correlated to the S&P 500, has been rallying and creating headwinds for stock prices.
 
 
How concerned should investors be about these divergences?
 
The full post can be found here.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Is transitory disinflation here to stay?

I’ve discussed the risk of transitory disinflation before, and it manifested itself in the form of hotter-than-expected January CPI and PPI reports. The reports rattled the bond market and expectations of the first quarter-point rate cut has been pushed out from May to June and a slower rate cut trajectory for the remainder of year.



As a reminder, here is Fed Chair Powell reply in to a question about the timing of rate cuts in his 60 Minutes interview: “We just want to see more good [inflation] data along those lines. It doesn't need to be better than what we've seen, or even as good. It just needs to be good. And so, we do expect to see that.” 
 
The hot CPI report was undoubtedly a shock to Fed officials who had watching a series of tame inflation reports.

The latest BoA Global Fund Manager Survey showed that only 4% of respondents expect higher rates and 7% expect higher inflation. It was therefore no surprise that bond prices skidded badly in the wake of the CPI report.
 

Do the stronger-than-inflation reports mean a pivot to a “higher for longer” narrative? Here are bull and bear cases.
 
The full post can be found here.

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

A hiccup, or the start of a correction?

Mid-week market update: The hot CPI print on Tuesday spark a massive risk-off episode. The S&P 500 staged a partial recovery today. The key question is, "Is this just a hiccup in the bull run, or the start of a correction?"
 
The stock market has been ripe for a correction for some time. The percentage of bullish stocks on P&F charts has flashed a negative divergence, which has usually resolved in a market downdraft.

 
The full post can be found here.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Why this AI bull is nothing like the NASDAQ in 2000

Preface: Explaining our market timing models 
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Asset Allocation Model is an asset allocation model that applies trend-following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity prices. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. The performance and full details of a model portfolio based on the out-of-sample signals of the Trend Model can be found here.


My inner trader uses a trading model, which is a blend of price momentum (is the Trend Model becoming more bullish, or bearish?) and overbought/oversold extremes (don't buy if the trend is overbought, and vice versa). Subscribers receive real-time alerts of model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of the email alerts is updated weekly here. The hypothetical trading record of the trading model of the real-time alerts that began in March 2016 is shown below.


The latest signals of each model are as follows:

  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities (Last changed from “sell” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trend Model signal: Bullish (Last changed from “neutral” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trading model: Neutral (Last changed from “bullish” on 24-Jan-2024)*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends. I am also on X/Twitter at @humblestudent. Subscribers receive real-time alerts of trading model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of those email alerts is shown here.

Subscribers can access the latest signal in real time here.



Priced to the point of insanity?

You may have seen the charts of the relative performance of the NASDAQ 100 to S&P 500. The ratio has already exceeded the dot-com peak in 2000. In addition, NYU professor Aswath Damodaran, who is regarded as the dean of company valuations, went on CNBC to say that Nvidia is priced “to the point of insanity”, while the other Magnificent Seven stocks are roughly fairly priced.


 
While the latest AI-driven mania may seem stretched by historical standards, we would argue that it has a lot further to run before the AI bull is done.
 
The full post can be found here.

Saturday, February 10, 2024

How investable is China? (Revisited)

About a year ago, when China emerged out of its zero-COVID lockdowns, I rhetorically asked, “How investable is China?”. I concluded, “Long-term investors in China are likely to face subpar returns coupled with high volatility”.

Now that China’s troubles have returned, it’s time to revisit the China investability question. The accompanying chart shows that China’s debt has exploded over the past decades, driven by a regime of growth-at-any-cost malinvestment. Similar credit cycles in other economies have resolved in financial crises. Will China be any different and how should investors react?

 The full post can be found here.

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Correction imminent?

Mid-week market update: I am sure everyone has seen the breadth divergences. Even as the S&P 500 rises to all-time highs, different versions of the Advance-Decline Line are struggling. Breadth deterioration is evident the further down you go in market capitalization.
 
 
The full post can be found here.

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Get ready to buy in May...

Preface: Explaining our market timing models 
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Asset Allocation Model is an asset allocation model that applies trend-following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity prices. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. The performance and full details of a model portfolio based on the out-of-sample signals of the Trend Model can be found here.


My inner trader uses a trading model, which is a blend of price momentum (is the Trend Model becoming more bullish, or bearish?) and overbought/oversold extremes (don't buy if the trend is overbought, and vice versa). Subscribers receive real-time alerts of model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of the email alerts is updated weekly here. The hypothetical trading record of the trading model of the real-time alerts that began in March 2016 is shown below.


The latest signals of each model are as follows:

  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities (Last changed from “sell” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trend Model signal: Bullish (Last changed from “neutral” on 28-Jul-2023)*
  • Trading model: Neutral (Last changed from “bullish” on 24-Jan-2024)*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends. I am also on X/Twitter at @humblestudent. Subscribers receive real-time alerts of trading model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of those email alerts is shown here.

Subscribers can access the latest signal in real time here.



A 2024 Roadmap

A combination of factors is converging to draw a stock market roadmap for 2024. Instead of the more familiar seasonal pattern of “sell in May and go away”, I would advocate a strategy of buying in May. The main factors that affect this roadmap are election year seasonality and the timing of the first rate cut.

Historically, the market has traced out a choppy pattern until May, followed by a rally into September, a pause and a rally into year-end. The market has so far outrun its seasonal pattern in 2024, with the warning that February has historically been weak during election years, according to Nautilus Investment Research.

The full post can be found here.