September uncertainties

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 Model is an asset allocation model which 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 the trading component of the Trend Model to look for changes in the direction of the main Trend Model signal. A bullish Trend Model signal that gets less bullish is a trading "sell" signal. Conversely, a bearish Trend Model signal that gets less bearish is a trading "buy" signal. The history of actual out-of-sample (not backtested) signals of the trading model are shown by the arrows in the chart below. Past trading of the trading model has shown turnover rates of about 200% per month.

The latest signals of each model are as follows:

• Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities*
• Trend Model signal: Neutral*
• Trading model: Bearish*

* 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 will also receive email notices of any changes in my trading portfolio.


September headwinds and tailwinds
Welcome to September. Looking forward, this month is known to be seasonally bearish. Jeff Hirsch of Trader`s Almanac found that September was the worst month of the year, based on seasonal factors.

Ryan Detrick of LPL Financial Research further dissected past September seasonality. While while returns have been negative, he found a silver lining. When the SPX is trading above its 200 dma, which it is today, the market has seen positive average returns, though the percentage positive is still below 50% at 47.9%.

That said, investors face a sea of uncertainty as we head into September. I have never known the market to perform well under conditions of high uncertainty, but consider the hurdles ahead:

• Legislative uncertainty over the debt ceiling and tax reform
• Geopolitical uncertainty over North Korea
• Uncertainty over Fed actions

Can stock prices climb the proverbial wall of worry in September, or will it retreat and test its correction lows seen in August?

The full post can be found at our new site here.