2020 is over, what's the next pain trade?

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: Bullish*

* 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.


The next pain trade

Now that 2020 is over, what's the next pain trade? I have a few candidates in mind. The latest BoA Global Fund Manager Survey taken in early December described the top two most crowded trade as long technology stocks, and short USD.

Another source of vulnerability is the expectation of a steepening yield curve. If history is any guide, heightened expectations of a steepening yield curve have resolved with market upsets of differing magnitude.

As a reminder, this survey was taken in December. After the Georgia special Senate elections gave the Democrats the trifecta of the control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, the 10-year Treasury yield surged to over 1%, and the yield curve steepened even further.

All of these vulnerabilities are connected from a cross-asset perspective - the steepening yield curve, long technology stocks, and short USD. 

The full post can be found here.

Healing?

Mid-week market update: Is the market exhibiting signs of froth, or is the economy healing? There are signs of both. As Fed chair Powell indicated, the economy has encountered a health related shock, and the Fed can only do so much to stabilize markets. It cannot provide a cure.

Some of the market based indicators of covid related anxiety are showing signs of healing.

The full post can be found here.

Why this volatility isn't unprecedented

I have heard comments from veteran technical analysts who have become bewildered by the market's action. The word "unprecedented" is often used.

I beg to differ. The violence of the sell-off, and subsequent rebound is not an unprecedented event. Recall the NASDAQ top of 2000. The NASDAQ 100 fell -39.8% from its March 2000 high, and rebounded 40.1% to its 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level in just four months. The index proceeded to lose -49.7% in that year, and ultimately -80.8% at the 2002 bottom, all from the July reaction high.

I am not implying that the NASDAQ pattern in 2000 represents any market analog to today's action. Barring some other unforeseen catastrophe, such as the Big One taking down California and decimating Silicon Valley, the market is not going to fall -80% from the reaction high.

In the past, I outlined my concerns about the stock market (see The 4 reasons why the market hasn't seen its final lows). This week, I register additional concerns, mainly from a technical analysis perspective.

The full post can be found here.

Making sense of the oil crash

Mid-week market update: How should investors interpret the crash in oil prices and its effect on the stock market? The most simplistic way of looking at it is to observe that stock and oil prices have diverged. Either oil has to rally hard, or stocks have to fall down - a lot.

That's a basic tactical view. While it may be useful for traders, correlation isn't causation. These gaps in performance can take a lot longer than anyone expects to close.

It certainly isn't the entire story.

The full post can be found here.

Still bullish, but time to reduce risk

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 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 those 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: Sell equities*
• Trend Model signal: Neutral*
• Trading model: Bullish*

* 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 the those email alerts is shown here.



Take some chips off the table
Don't get me wrong. I haven't turned bearish. The US equity market is no longer wildly cheap. The current forward P/E is now 16.2, which is between its 5-year average of 16.4 and 10-year average of 14.6. It is a far cry from the sub-14 multiple seen at the December lows.

When I turned bullish in mid-January 2019 (see A rare "what's my credit card limit" buy signal and Ursus Interruptus), my model portfolio became overweight equities in the snapback rally. Its equity weight would have drifted to either the top or above its asset allocation range. Now that the market is no longer cheap, it is time to trim equity weights back to a more neutral position.

This is not a bearish call. The US stock market is not going to crash, and it should be higher a year from now. This is just a call to reduce risk, and near-term risk levels are rising. Looking to the next few months, a number of risks have appeared.

• Rising financial stress
• Weak market internals and negative divergences
• US-China trade deal blowback
• USD strength is a threat to stock prices

The full post can be found here.





A Special Announcement
We told you so. We told you the market was going down.

Here is the track of Humble Student of the Markets, where we are neither perma-bulls nor perma-bears. Most recently, we have been correctly bullish since the correction of 2015, and turned cautious in August 2018 (see Market top ahead? My inner investor turns cautious, August 5, 2018).

We were also timely at the 2009 bottom. We issued a call to buy beaten up low-priced stocks with high insider buying a week before the ultimate bottom (see Phoenix rising? February 24, 2009).

The out-of-sample record of our model trading portfolio in 2018 was up 42.9%. For more details, see our weekly updates here.

The recent market volatility has brought a flood of new subscribers, and we are announcing a price increase, and a number of other changes in order to better control the growth of our community. However, all subscribers will be grandfathered at their old prices.

The following changes will occur as of March 1, 2019:

• The annual subscription price will rise from US$249.99 to US$365 per year.
• The monthly subscription price will rise from US$24.99 to US$36.50 per month.
• The 24-hour subscription will no longer be offered.
• The embargo period for free content will change from two weeks to four weeks.

Remember, if you subscribe now, you will be grandfathered at the old price - permanently.

The canary in the credit crunch coalmine

Historically, every recession has been accompanied by an equity bear market.

One characteristic of every recession has been a credit crunch. As the economy slows, banks react by tightening their lending criteria, which dries up the availability of credit, and eventually causes a credit crunch. There are a number of ways that investor can monitor the evolution of lending standards.

The most obvious way is to watch the Fed's lending officer survey. The latest data shows that readings remain benign for both corporate and individual borrowers. One disadvantage of the survey is the results only come out quarterly, which is not very timely and amounts to looking in the rear view mirror.

A more timely data series are the Chicago Fed`s Financial Conditions Index, and the St. Louis Fed`s Financial Stress Index. Current conditions show that Stress levels are starting to rise, though the absolute stress levels remain low. Both of these data series are released monthly, which is more timely than the lending officer surveys.

There may be a better real-time way of watching for a credit crunch.

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