A bull market with election year characteristics

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: Bullish (Last changed from “neutral” on 20-Nov-2023)*

* 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 revived bull

As 2023 drew to a close, the revival of a long-term buy signal emerged. I have highlighted the utility of the bullish crossover of the monthly MACD histogram of the NYSE Composite Index before. In the past, such instances have signaled strong long-term buy phases (blue vertical lines). 

This model first flashed a buy signal in June 2023, but MACD turned negative in September. As the market rallied off its recent October lows, the monthly MACD turned bullish again. There have been two other similar episodes of these MACD buy signalisakeouts. Once in 1999, and the other in 2012. Both traced out brief range-bound price patterns before breaking out to new highs. If the limited past (n=2) is any guide, stock prices should also rally to new all-time highs in the near future.

 The full post can be found here.