Mag 7 Holds; Break Lows Threaten Broader Market
My focus continues to be on the Mag 7, which has remained in its narrow range since last October. Should we break the lows, the broader indices will be at risk of a deeper correction. https://t.co/DCwPOyMXCH
Modest S&P Drawdown Leaves Market Vulnerable to War Mis‑read
The heatmap below shows that the drawdown for the S&P 500 remains modest at -5.4%. The market is only modestly oversold with 32% of stocks above their 50-day moving average. Sentiment is mixed and both earnings expectations and margins remain...
Oil Shocks Vary: Some Brief, Others Enduring
The next chart shows the major oil shocks, including 1973, 1979, 1990, 2008, and 2022. Some were brief, others were not. 🧵 https://t.co/SHZJOMDkYG
Energy Leads as Discretionary Stocks Hit Bottom
In the US equity market, the energy sector is the only one gaining ground while everything else corrects. Consumer discretionary stocks are at the bottom, and while it’s tempting to conclude that this is because the dystopian “Citrini” scenario...
Oil Backwardation Signals Temporary Shock; BTC Ties to Dollar
The heatmap below shows that the oil futures curve remains heavily backwardated, indicating that the energy market believes that the current oil shock is a temporary supply problem that will get fixed. That’s probably correct but the question is how...
Bitcoin’s $60k Level Likely Acts as Floor
Bitcoin has continued to search for a bottom, and I still think that the $60k is a good place to look. We may well undercut it at some point, but based on the power law support line and the gold/Bitcoin...
60/20/20 Beats Traditional 60/40 with Gold, International
It has been my thesis for the past 5 years that the “new” 60/40 is more like a 60/20/20. To illustrate this the chart below shows that a hypothetical 60/20/20 portfolio, allocated as noted in the chart, could have sharply...
Mag7 Support Break Could Trigger 10% Market Correction
If the markdowns continue for equities, then the Mag7 will likely break support (below). That could be enough to turn what so far has been a 4% SPX drawdown into a more bona fide 10% correction. We can see from the...
Market at Fair Value After 4% S&P Pullback
In order to help us visualize the various stress points in the market (and in case they get worse), I created several dashboards over the weekend. First up is the commodity & currency heat map. From left to right are the...
Oil Shocks Historically Slash Equity Valuations
Taking a look back to the 1930’s, we can see the various oil spikes over time. The top panel shows the 5-year CAPE ratio, and the bottom panel shows nominal oil prices in brown, and inflation-adjusted oil prices in purple...
Hormuz Tensions Spike Oil, Pressure Global Markets
Oil prices are spiking as the frozen Straits of Hormuz has become the epicenter of the conflict. As of Sunday night’s futures open, WTI futures are trading at $108, which could make the...
Stagflation Looms as Iran Tensions Test Market Resilience
With the conflict in Iran becoming seemingly more contracted, the markets seem to be pricing in a less benign outcome despite what has been a Goldilocks backdrop of robust earnings growth, rising margins and productivity, hefty capex spending, an easing...
Equal‑Weighted Index Holds, Cap‑Weighted Faces 10% Risk
At the same time, the equal-weighted price index remains in a solid uptrend and unlike its cap-weighted sibling is not over its skis from a trend perspective. The broader market is well-grounded from a price, breadth, earnings, and valuation perspective. It’s the...
US Valuation Premium Shrinks as Global Earnings Surge
Global markets are at or near all-time highs, supported by strong earnings growth around the world. The rest of the world is outperforming the US on a combination of better earnings growth, competitive payout ratios, and lower valuations. As such,...
EM Earnings Surge 31% YoY, Outpacing US and Commodities
One way to visualize the global earnings convergence is by showing earnings estimates for the different regions on a log scale. All estimates are rising but EM estimates are rising the fastest. Shown another way, EM estimates are now rising at...
Capex Share Rises, Yet Dividends Remain Intact
Companies are spending more of their revenues on capex, and so far, this hasn’t come at the expense of either dividends or buybacks. At the bottom in 2022, companies were spending 5.4% of their revenues on capex, and that has...
Earnings Beats Keep 40‑Month Bull Market Alive
The earnings picture has continuedto provide support for this now 40-month old bull market. With Q4 earnings season soon wrapping up (with 425 companies having reported), 75% have beaten estimates by an average of 773 bps. The dollar estimate has...
Mag 7 Range Holds; Break Below Could Trigger 10% Drop
Whether this benign broadening will continue depends largely on whether the Mag 7 can hold on to its trading range. So far it has, but should support be taken out at the range lows I could easily see another 10%...
Equal‑Weighted S&P 500 Beats Mag 7 Amid Market Dip
The chart below shows that the equal-weighted S&P 500 has outperformed the Mag 7 by 12% over the past 3 months. The last time that happened was in the fall of 2024, and the time before was the spring of...
Bull Market Still Strong, Yet Flattening Into Picks‑and‑Shovels
Another week, another headline bombshell. Such has been the norm during the past year or so. But charts are charts, and there is a lot we can learn from them in order to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio. What do...
Gold Tops Sharpe Rankings; Bitcoin Shows Hopeful Higher Low
For the spectrum of asset classes that I track, equities remain in the middle with modest 52-week Sharpe Ratios, while gold remains on top and Bitcoin at the bottom. Gold continues to exhibit very resilient behavior, recovering quickly from corrections. This...
Soft CPI at 2.4% Signals Declining Inflation Trend
Last week’s CPI report came in soft at 2.4%, which was understandably well received by the bond market. The Truflation index, which has plummeted to a 0.7% year-over-year rate of change, hinted at a softer turn for the CPI. https://t.co/ZsIPypfaNW
AI Productivity Gains Pave Way for Fed Rate Cut
The combination of decent economic data (see last week’s employment data) and the softer inflation report might be anecdotal evidence that the promise of an AI-driven productivity boom (which would lift the economy’s non-inflationary speed limit) is becoming a reality....
Earnings and Dividends Now Power Half of Market Gains
One positive aspect of the evolution of this market cycle has been how the market has become less reliant on multiple expansion. Earnings and dividends now comprise almost half of the cumulative gains since October 2022, with the P/E expansion...
Rising Capex May Curb Buybacks, Pressure Valuations
With credit spreads low and profit margins seemingly on the rise, valuations seem OK at current levels. These two variables are important drivers for the equity risk premium, which is currently at 4.0% according to my version of the DCF...
Mega‑Cap Weakness Could Drag Entire S&P Down
The reason this is important (even though it’s only a few stocks) is that the Mag 7 is so big that if they should fall they could well take the S&P 500 (cap-weighted) index with it. History shows (below) that...
Equal‑Weighted S&P Nears Cap‑Weighted Levels Amid Broadening Market
The market has been broadening out nicely as of late, and since the April 2025 Tariff tantrum low, the equal-weighted S&P 500 index has almost caught up to the cap-weighted index (34% vs 38%). It has been good to see....
Equities Up, Trend Flattens Amid 4% Yield, Rotation
As for the markets, last week the Dow briefly reached the 50k milestone while the S&P 500 continued to hang out just below 7,000. The 10-year yield has been flirting with 4% again and the terminal rate for the Fed’s...
M7 Tech Stocks Test Low, Threatening Repeat Correction
However, as the AI narrative continues to unfold, from euphoria a few months ago to handwringing now (over the commodification of the SaaS stocks and the unknown ROI of hyperscaler capex), the Might Mag 7 is showing some strains. The...
Steepening Yield Curve Could Shift QE Benefits to Main Street
How might the Fed/Treasury do that? One possibility is to cut short rates to steepen the yield curve, and deregulate the banks into buying the long end so that the Fed’s balance sheet can be “privatized.” If those QE assets...
Fed Treasury to Coordinate
Things have been quiet on the rate side, with the 10-year yield trading at around 4 ¼ percent and expectations for a few more rate cuts (down to 3.1%) holding firm. We will likely soon have a lot more coordination between...
Bulls Near Record, Yet Options and Speculatives Stay Low
Sentiment in the stock market appears somewhat mixed. The Investors Intelligence survey (below) does show that the percentage of bulls is near the historical highs (62) while the percent bears is near the low (15). However, that level of enthusiasm is...
Global Payout Growth Outpaces US, Driving Valuations
And it’s not just global earnings that have been showing momentum. Payouts (dividends + buybacks) have been advancing as well, as companies near and far have become more shareholder savvy. The growth rate of payouts has been the primary driver...
Global Earnings Boom Ends S&P’s EAFE Uptrend
The earnings boom has gone global, with estimates in both EAFE and EM showing good momentum. The blue squiggles show estimates for the S&P 500 and the pink ones are for the MSCI EAFE index. The days of significant divergences...
Strong Earnings, Modest Overvaluation—Boom, Not Bubble
This formidable earnings growth has allowed valuations to take a back seat for a change. While the 5-year CAPE ratio is up there at 32x, the n12m P/E multiple doesn’t seem too onerous at 22x, considering not only the earnings...