A Recessionary Bear Ahead?

In the wake of Gulf War III, the odds of a U.S. recession in 2026 have spiked in the betting markets. Even though the implied recession probability has retreated, they are nevertheless elevated.

Economic recessions are bull market killers. What are the chances of an oil shock-induced recession? Here are the bull and bear cases.

The full post can be found here.

How Do You Say TACO in Farsi?

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). As this site is shutting down on March 31, 2026, my inner trader is retiring so that there will be no tradings outstanding at the end of the quarter. The hypothetical trading record of the trading model of the real-time alerts that began in March 2016 to 16-Jan-2026 is shown below, and the chart will no longer be updated.

 

 

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 “bearish” on 27-Jun-2025)*

* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

 

The TALO-TACO Cycle
Both the Pentagon and Israel have set expectations for a multi-week military campaign against Iran. I believe political pressures will shorten the war in a way that’s beyond the control of military planners. Rising financial market stress, rising bond yields, and surging equity and bond option risk will force Trump to shift from TALO (Trump Always Lashes Out) to TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out).

Here’s why.

The full post can be found here.

Vulnerable to a Setback

Mid-week market update: The delayed Jobs Report came in much higher than expectations this morning. The knee-jerk reaction in the pre-opening hours was risk-on, but the market reconsidered its view and pulled back after the open. 

 

Once again, the S&P 500 has failed to break out to the upside, though the equal-weighted S&P 500 achieved an all-time high, and non-U.S. stocks are in a well-defined uptrend. The VVIX, or the volatility of the VIX, remains above the key 100 level, indicating continued market anxiety.

 

 

I interpret these conditions as a high degree of vulnerability to a short-term setback.

The full post can be found here.

How to Position for the Greenland and Other 2026 TACOs

When the markets became rattled by the prospect of a Trump threat to annex Greenland over the weekend, I knew that a TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) walk back was inevitable. I observed in the past that the markets would eventually discipline Trump’s unusual excesses. Indeed, the combination of a spiking 10-year Treasury yield and surging volatility indices pressured the White House to find a face-saving off-ramp.

In addition, I believe the Greenland Gambit along with the Venezuelan Adventure are part of a pattern of foreign policy moves as domestic policy safety valves leading up to the mid-term election. Investors should view possible U.S. foreign policy initiative between today and November within an electoral framework and react accordingly.

The full post can be found here.

Regime Change Adventures: Bush, Obama, and now Trump

Emerging market shocks follow a familiar pattern in quantitative investing. When the event occurs, quantitative factor responses in stock selection get thrown out the window. As the smoke clears, top-down strategists map out the direction and magnitude of the shock, and technical analysis factors like price momentum and reversals start to work. As the magnitude of the shock becomes known, company analysts revise their earnings estimates, and estimate revision and earnings surprise factors begin to work. Finally, as the investment environment stabilizes, conventional value and growth factors gain traction.
 

The same thing is happening when U.S. forces seized Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife in a weekend raid. The smoke is starting to clear, both metaphorically and literally, and invest0ors can see the direction of the shock.
 

The raid made some sense from a Trumpian geopolitical viewpoint. Bloomberg opinion columnist Javier Blas characterized the move as Trump building his own Oil Empire. The Donroe Doctrine countries in the Western hemisphere, the U.S., Canada, Venezuela and the rest of the Americas, control roughly 40% of global oil production and this allows the White House much greater control over oil prices and production to avoid energy shocks in the future.

It all sounds good in theory. But as the recent history during the 21st Century shows, this is the third time the U.S. has attempted regime change in oil-producing countries. Bush tried it in Iraq, Obama tried it in Libya and now Trump is trying it in Venezuela. None worked out according to their pre-war textbooks. Here’s what this latest geopolitical adventure means for investors.

The full post can be found here.

Opportunities and Challenges of 2026

The accompanying chart from Jeffrey Hirsch of Almanac Trader shows the expected seasonal price pattern for the S&P 500. As with any seasonality analysis, direction is more important than the magnitude of the move. If history is any guide, expect a volatile year until October, followed by a rally into year-end.
I agree with the broad strokes of the seasonality analysis, and the pattern forms the base case of my S&P 500 market expectations for 2026.

But I still have questions for the market, and here are the opportunities and challenges for investors in the new year.

The full post can be found here.

25 or 50 Next Week?

Mid-week market update: The combination of the Quarterly Census Employment and Wages (QCEW) weakness and a soft PPI report has moved the market to expect to at least a quarter-point rate cut at the FOMC meeting next week. There are even whispers that the Fed may even move by a half-point, though the odds is only 10%.

 

  

New Deal democrat came to the dismal conclusion that QCEW may be signaling that there was no job growth at all this year. While bad news is good news for the bond market, is it good news or bad news for the stock market?

The full post can be found here.

 

Special announcement: Humble Student of the Markets will cease publication on March 31, 2026. See this announcement for more details and updates.  

 

The Surprise Victor of the Israel-Iran War

So far, the Middle East truce is holding and oil prices have begun to normalize. An Economist article featured analysis from the Ceasefire Group that studied ceasefires between 1989 and 2020 and found about half were successful, one-third collapsed and the outcome of the remainder were inconclusive. Of Middle East ceasefires, about half failed.

 

I assess the current situation in the Israel-Iran conflict and its implications for investors.
 

The full post can be found here.

 

Special announcement: Humble Student of the Markets will cease publication on March 31, 2026. See this announcement for more details and updates.       

What an actual bond market catastrophe looks like

Mid-week market update: Is the bond market tantrum over?

Here is the good news. In the wake of tame PPI and CPI reports this week, the 30-year Treasury yield retreated while in a resistance zone (top panel). In addition, there is nothing worse than a failed breakout. The second panel shows the inflation factor trade, consisting of long TIPS and short long-dated zero coupon Treasuries, which staged an upside breakout and reversed itself.

 

The worse of the yield spike fears may have passed. But that was nothing. As a lesson. Here is an actual case of what a potential bond market catastrophe from uncontrolled debt growth looks like.

The full post can be found here.

Thinking the unthinkable: Israel-Iran War

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: Neutral (Last changed from “bullish” on 26-Jul-2024)*
• Trading model: Neutral (Last changed from “bearish” on 19-Sep-2024)*

* 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.

 

The drumbeats of war

Oil prices have risen in response to rising tensions in the Middle East, but the year-over-year change is still negative. While war isn’t in our base-case scenario, investing is about pricing risk. I argue that the market is underpricing the risk of a conflict.

 The full post can be found here.

A powerful buy signal, with caveats

There is an adage on Wall Street that investors shouldn’t fight the Fed (or central banks in general), but the devil is in the details. 

Callum Thomas of Topdown Charts that global central banks are engaged in a broad-based easing campaign. The limited sample of the history of such episodes (annotations are mine) show stocks rose on two of the four occasions (blue lines) and fell in the other two (grey lines). This begs the question of whether pivots to widespread rate cuts are equity bullish.

 

My analysis of the latest circumstances is a qualified “yes”, but investors should be aware of the risks.
 

The full post can be found here.

Five bullish reversals you may have missed

The S&P 500 exhibited a surprise price reversal on the weekly chart. After violating an uptrend line that stretches back to the COVID Crash bottom which scared the living daylights out of a lot of investors, the index staged an upside reversal while the weekly stochastic recycled from oversold to neutral, which has been a useful buy signal in the past.

 
In addition to this obvious bullish price reversal on the weekly chart, here are five other risk reversal factors that you may have missed.
 

The full post can be found here.

Why you should fade the war hysteria

Oil prices have jumped over $6 a barrel since the Hamas attack on Israel as a geopolitical risk premium became embedded in the oil price. The surprise attack brought up memories of the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago, in which the armies of Egypt and Syria launched a simultaneous surprise attack on Yom Kippur in 1973 that left Israel fighting for its existence. In the wake of that war, the Arab-producing states launched an oil embargo on the West which devastated growth. It’s no wonder oil prices popped this time.

 
I think investors should fade market’s war fears. Here’s why.

The full post can be found here.

A geopolitical stress test?

Mid-week market update: Geopolitical risks are rising and it remains to be seen how the market reacts to geopolitical stress. On the weekend, I made the following tweet.

Those fears are becoming more real.

The full post can be found here.

How the G7 meeting exposes the risks for 2024

Two weeks ago I highlighted how history shows that the stock market only bottomed after recessions have begun (see How to spot the stock market bottom) and a recession is likely on the way in H2 2023. If that is the case, U.S. equities should bottom at some point this year and a recovery should be in full swing by 2024. 

However, the agenda of G7 Summit in Hiroshima highlights the geopolitical risks to the 2024 recovery and the threat to global growth in 2024 and beyond.
 

 

The full post can be found here.

Why you should financial model the Yom Kippur War

The recent OPEC+ decision to cut oil output by 2 million barrels per day is giving me a case of PTSD from a Yom Kippur long ago. In October 1973, the stock market was just getting over a case of Nifty Fifty growth stock mania. Arab armies, led by Egypt and Syria, made a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur and overwhelmed the surprised defenders. The Israelis eventually prevailed in the conflict with US help. Arab oil-exporting countries responded with an oil embargo that spiked energy prices and caused a deep recession. The stock market fell roughly -50% on a peak-to-trough basis before recovering.

Fast forward to 2022. Instead of the Nifty Fifty, we have the FANG+ mania, which may be show signs of fading. Instead of a Middle East war, we have the Russo-Ukraine war. Instead of an Arab Oil Embargo, Russia has weaponized energy, mostly against the EU. Despite much lobbying by Washington, this year's Yom Kippur brought an OPEC+ surprise. The organization made a decision to cut oil output by 2 mbpd. While the cut isn't as bad as it sounds because a number of OPEC members aren't producing at capacity, the decision nevertheless shows that the US and Europe have no allies within OPEC. As a consequence, Street analysts are scrambling to raise their oil price forecasts, and higher energy prices are likely to put pressure on the Fed to stay hawkish.

Will investors see a repeat of the 1973-1974 bear market in 2022-2023?

The full post can be found here.

Higher for longer

Mid-week market update: The Fed has spoken. As expected, it hike interest rates 75 bps. In its Summary of Economy Projections (SEP), it sharply lowered GDP growth for this year and it raised the Fed Funds projection to 4.4% for this year and 4.6% next year, which are both ahead of market expectations. In other words, higher for longer (though it did signal rate cuts in 2024).

Fed Funds futures reacted by extending the already elevated Funds Funds rates for next year, but it did show some skepticism of the Fed's SEP by expecting rate cuts by September 2023.

The full post can be found here.

What's "Black Swan" in Chinese?

Mid-week market update: Here we go again. Just when you thought world events were under control, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan raised the geopolitical risk premium.

And just as I predicted on the weekend (see In what world is fighting the Fed a good idea?), we've had a cacophony of Fed officials pushing back on market expectations of an imminent pause in rate hikes. Bond yields spiked in response.

Here is what I am watching.

The full post can be found here.

How a war of conquest has become a contest of pain

I received feedback from a number of readers in response to my publication, Bearishness, begone!. They expressed concern over the terrifying spike in European natural gas prices. In response to the EU's support for Ukraine, Russia has weaponized its energy exports. Gazprom has already reduced Nord Stream 1 gas flows to 20% of capacity. What happens this winter? What are the consequences for the region's economy? How will the ECB cope in light of inflationary pressures from rising energy prices?

The root of the surge in energy prices is the Russia-Ukraine war. In response to the aforementioned questions, I discuss:

• The state of the battlefield and its outlook;
• The hybrid war beyond the battlefield; and
• The contest of pain between Russia and the West.

The full post can be found here.

Bearishness, begone!

The returns of my Trend Asset Allocation Model have been strong. Based on an "out of sample" record of signals from 2013 and a simulated portfolio that varies up to +/- 20% from a 60/40 benchmark, the model portfolio has managed to achieve equity-like returns with 60/40-like risk. Performance has also been consistently positive in the shorter time frames (to July 26, 2022).

• 1 year: Model portfolio -8.1% vs. 60/40 -9.8%
• 2 years: Model portfolio 7.1% vs. 60/40 4.2%
• 3 years: Model portfolio 10.2% vs. 60/40 7.1%
• 5 years: Model portfolio 10.9% vs. 60/40 7.8%

   

The Trend Model turned neutral from bullish in January 2022 and turned bearish in March. Amidst all the gloom about a global recession, it's time to become more constructive on equities. The signal has been upgraded to neutral from bearish.

Here's why.

The full post can be found here.