The bulls' second wind, or last gasp?

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 price. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. In essence, it seeks to answer the question, "Is the trend in the global economy expansion (bullish) or contraction (bearish)?"

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 are 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*
• Trend Model signal: Bullish*
• Trading model: Neutral*

* 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 and tweet mid-week observations 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.


Still scaling the heights

The S&P 500 remains in an uptrend on the weekly chart. After pulling back and successfully testing the lower bound of a rising megaphone trend line three weeks ago, the index rose to test resistance as defined by the upper megaphone trend line. 

Should the market break out to the upside, it would represent a blow-off top of unknown magnitude. On the other hand, bulls should be warned that the market is exhibiting a negative divergence on the 5-week RSI. Should the market break the lower megaphone trend line, the experience of the past four years suggests a pullback in the 6-12% range.

Does this market action represent the start of a renewed bull or the last gasp of a dying bull? Here is what I am watching.

The full post can be found here.