MarketCycle Wealth Management

 

A Turbid Crystal Ball

The gaze is not crystal clear, I freely admit that I might be wrong, but the following are my “predictive” thoughts about 2022 and 2023:

1. Normally, a new cyclical stock bull market can only begin after the Federal Reserve has halted all interest rate increases and right now they are still raising rates, but like much else about the recent bear market, this time it might behave very differently.
2. Back in December of 2021, MarketCycle correctly called the higher risk period of 2022.  I felt that the market would eventually bottom and that months later it would retest by going a bit deeper than the first bottom.  This happened.  I have to admit that the downdraft went deeper than I had expected.  Now the ‘always behind the curve’ Federal Reserve may cause the turmoil to last longer than I originally expected, although the stock market may now, over the coming months, gyrate “sideways and up” rather than just down.
3. Way back in the Spring of 2020, MarketCycle was perhaps the very first to predict the high inflation period that was headed in our direction.  After 40 years of falling inflation, this was an important call.
4. I also correctly called the inflation peak before just about anyone else.
5. I called the stock market bottom in June of 2022.  People likely think that this was a bad call, however the vast majority of stocks did, in fact, bottom in June.  I still believe that this prediction will prove to be technically correct.
6. The market has now completed its normal “third leg down” (per prior blog) and excessive “margin” (borrowed investing money) has slowly worked its way out of the system.  I now feel that the Federal Reserve will “talk down” the stock market whenever it gets “too strong” and this may cause some sideways swings before the stock market fully grabs its cahoonas and just heads up to new record highs.
7. Regardless of the recent and temporary crypto-currency Black Swan event(s), I believe that the larger and more important cryptos will move higher as risk is once again slowly embraced.  Before the Black Swan event, crypto had been basing sideways for 6 months right at strong support; it was getting ready to head higher again.  Now, it may head a bit lower before strongly moving higher again.  Bitcoin is not an investment, it is a speculation that still has the potential to offer gigantic profits via holding only a tiny portfolio position.  MarketCycle has figured out how to capture the price spikes and this has now made bitcoin of interest to us.  Bitcoin and ethereum base sideways and then spike and then fall… base sideways and then spike and then fall… base sideways and then spike.  It looks a bit like an EKG.
8. MarketCycle correctly predicted the rush up and then the peak of the USDollar (where we sold our USD position on the week of the peak).  I now expect the USDollar to move mostly sideways and very slightly down (and this will not offer a good ‘shorting’ opportunity).
9. I am now calling the bottom in Treasury-bonds, although it might be a messy bottom.  Extended-duration T-bonds may soon provide higher tax-free interest, much lower risk and they will now likely move higher whenever the stock market moves down, offering important portfolio protection.
10. I expect gold to continue to gain in strength as the USDollar weakens.  By the 2030’s, investors will fully realize the importance of gold.
11. I expect commodities to continue to move lower, but for food and energy (and diesel) to take longer to move down.
12. My feeling is that, over the next couple of years, stock market strength will be found in small-caps, cash-cow stocks, pure-value stocks, financial sector stocks, healthcare sector stocks and high-dividend stocks (not dividend-growers and not utilities).
13. The United States should continue to lead in relative strength for the next 6-7 years.
14. I now feel that a recession will be “randomly called.” MarketCycle’s main recession indicator has recently triggered.  Any recession may be an inch deep and a mile wide and it might have only a minimal effect on the stock market but a broadening negative effect on the economy and on the housing market.  Remember, the stock market and the economy are not the same things; the stock market moves roughly 9 months ahead of the economy, both up and down.  If one waits for the economy (and one’s emotions) to improve before investing in stocks, then nine months of strong profits have already been left behind.  People repeatedly buy at the market top and then sell (or buy protection) at the market bottom, the exact opposite of what they should do.
15. Nothing in investing moves in a straight line, everything zig-zags.  MarketCycle’s inflation indicators have signaled that we might get an uptick in the inflation data (perhaps in December but more likely) on January 12th and if so, this could cause the Fed to move 0.5% on February 1, 2023 instead of the expected 0.25%… and if this all plays out, then it could cause a temporary & tolerable dip in the stock market.
16. 2023 will likely be “the year of recapturing new highs.”  The Dow, which is leading the market higher (just as it did after the year-2000 “dot-com” bust) will soon recapture its pre-bear-market highs.**  Small-caps will eventually follow suit, especially “pure-value, cash-rich small-cap stocks.”  This is why our barbell approach has been working so well… defensive (Dow) on one end of the barbell and aggressive (small-caps) on the other end.
17. ** The Dow stock index has now moved above its bear market trendline, above its 200 day moving average and as of Friday, November 25th, it has now made a bullish “higher high” by moving above the prior bear market peak.  The S&P-500 and the Nasdaq-100 are being held back because of their high technology-sector holdings; whatever leads in the prior cyclical bull market will not lead in the next.  NOTE: Some investors make trading decisions based on the activity of the Nasdaq stock index, but this is a mistake because the Nasdaq very often lags the general market, sometimes for a decade at a time.
18. Right now we are entering the historically strongest period of the stock market year at the same time that we have reached the strongest two years of the Presidential Cycle.  The most profitable period during any new cyclical bull market is always during the first two years off of the bear market bottom (when stocks are being offered at incredibly low prices and risk is naturally lower than it is at a market top).  Quality stocks are currently cheap and quality bonds may be even cheaper.

The stock market always moves higher despite the temporary corrections that cause markets to zig-zag around their median price.  The below chart shows the S&P-500 stock index over the past 122 years (since the year 1900).  The market gets too strong and it moves too high above the median trendline and then it corrects to or below the line in order to let off the excessive pent-up steam… then it moves higher again.  ALWAYS.  And the general stock market “trend direction,” as you can see below, is always UP over time.  This is why it PAYS to invest in stocks (partial ownership in a corporation)… where you share in the profit gains generated by the corporation and where you can also receive continuous dividend payments directly into your investing account.

All stock market corrections and bear markets are TEMPORARY occurances that occur during all Secular bull markets.  Avoidance is not the answer.  The only investing technique that anyone needs to deploy during these temporary & difficult periods is: PATIENCE

 

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MARKET CYCLE  —  TREND FOLLOWING  —  RELATIVE STRENGTH  —  LOW VOLATILITY  —  HEDGE FUNDS

MarketCycle Wealth Management

 

Three Legs Down and Bottoming

 

Three seems to be the magic number.  You know the old saying:  “Third time’s a charm.”

This posting explains what normally happens in a bear market, but as I’ve said in recent articles, this bear market seems to have a deep desire to fool people even while still sticking to the normal bear market pattern of three legs down.  Eventually a new multi-year bull market arrives that contains three prolonged legs up.  Most investors, even professionals, appear to be oblivious to the fact that market cycles almost always move in three stages up and then three stages down.  The problem for even knowledgable investors is that you don’t know in advance whether you’re going to get a common one-legged market correction or a deeper three-legged bear market until you’re half way through the process.

We’ll soon know how it all plays out in this most recent bear market, but we appear to have already survived the third leg down as shown by the big blue “X’ on the “2022” chart below. 

Bear market corrections serve the process of cooling-off an overly heated stock market.  2021 was a rip-roaring year and 2022 came along to let off some of the pent up & excess steam.  This will now (or soon) allow the bull market to resume.

Bear markets seem to almost always have three legs down:  

1. The initial bear market drop is caused by the riskiest portions of the investment markets selling off:  small-caps, high-yield junk bonds, transportation stocks (because shipping is slowing down), always over-valued technology stocks, consumer discretionary stocks because consumers naturally pull back from buying non-necessity items.  This first leg down is followed by a big bounce up in stocks.
2. The second bear market leg down is caused by commodities selling off from their overly high valuations and this further pulls the stock market down.  This second leg down is followed by a big bounce up in stocks.
3. The third leg down is caused by a combination of investor panic followed by brokerage panic causing the brokerage houses (like Interactive Brokers) to call back margin-loans (margin is money that is borrowed from a brokerage with the sole purpose of adding it to one’s investment account assets).  This strong third leg down, during which the safest mega-cap stocks are finally sold, is followed by a bottoming process and then it is always followed by a prolonged and powerful and profitable bull market.  Always.

The current bear market has already experienced three legs down.  It has likely now either already hit its bottom or it is currently involved a sideways multi-month bottoming process.  Either way, we are likely at or near the end of the bear market, not the beginning.  Good times will ultimately re-emerge.

[During a bottoming process, the assets that normally perform the best are:  cash-cow-small-cap stocks, select low-volatility stocks, financial sector stocks, healthcare sector stocks, consumer staples sector stocks, select high-dividend stocks (not dividend-growers), pure-value stocks and gold.  This asset information is certainly worth the price of this free blog.]

We need to forget about “recessions.”  This time around we are likely to get a milder “profits & growth recession” and much of this will have already been priced into the market during its third leg down.  The Federal Reserve will attempt to force a prolonged bottoming process in order to further and more quickly reduce inflationary levels; they are the wild card.  Markets went through a classic sideways bottoming process during the past two big bear markets of 2000 and 2008.  For people with even a small amount of patience, this bottoming process is tolerable and it will eventually be forgotten when the new bull market begins its strong upwards march.

Normally, during the first year of a new cyclical bull market off of a bear market bottom, the stock market moves quickly higher, like a rocket… rapidly recouping any losses and generating fresh profits.

 

The following chart shows the bear market of 2000… three legs down and a sideways bottoming process:

 

And this next chart shows the bear market of 2008… three legs down and a sideways-and-down bottoming process:

 

And this chart shows the current cyclical bear market of 2022.  I expect this bear market to be milder than those in 2000 and 2008 because we are also in an overlapping Secular stock bull market that likely won’t end until around 2029.  But this one is already showing three perfectly executed legs down (see the blue “X”) with a bottoming process that is likely either completed or entering into a multi-month bumpy period (moving mostly sideways, but it could briefly dip down again like it did in early 2009).  In my opinion, without the recurring and well-timed trash-talk by the Federal Reserve, a brand new multi-year cyclical bull market would already be rising and unstoppable.  Perhaps it technically already is.

 

 

 

And for my final comments:

Investing is investing; it is not gambling.  In investing you win; in gambling you lose.  A long term chart of gambling would be choppy and downward sloping because gambling is a gamble.  But owning stocks actually means that you are a partial owner of a strong and normally profitable corporation; it is an investment that, over time, pays continually and steadily via price gains and dividends.  If you own H&R Block stock, you can absolutely claim to be a partial owner of H&R Block corporation.  Of course, for safety reasons, investors always divesify amongst many stocks; if you own 500 stocks and one goes bad, well, who cares.

This final chart (below) shows the stock market profit path over the past 122 years.  Stocks move above the orange median-trendline and get overheated and then they have to move back towards the orange median-trendline to cool off, as they just did in 2022.  They only move and stay BELOW the orange median-trendline when stocks are also in a Secular bear market, as they were during the 1970’s and the 2000’s and that is not happening now (we are currently in a Secular BULL market that likely runs from 2011 to 2029).  [“Secular bull” just means that the over-riding tendency is to move higher for longer regardless of any temporary corrections and bear markets and recessions.]

While they do zig-zag as I often repeat, they ultimately just keep going higher because stocks are INVESTMENTS, they are a piece of the action, they are YOUR piece of the action.

Bear markets are common but they never last long; the stock market is primarily bullish and that is clearly seen on this 122 year long stock market chart; it just keeps going up.  Gambling is 50/50 at best, for example you have a better chance of being abducted by Martians than you have of winning the lottery, but people that invest are clearly ALWAYS rewarded over time. 

$1 invested and held in a stock index starting at the very beginning of this chart (in the year 1900) and held until today would have generated a gain of 8,727,946%.  You could buy Europe with that amount of money.  lol

Stocks can earn in one day what a “safe” money market fund can earn in one year.  MarketCycle’s stock positions did this on Friday.  In just a few months, stocks can earn what a money market fund would earn during an entire human lifetime.

My point is that if investing were gambling, then this PROFIT line would not only go in one general direction, which is up.

 

SUMMARY:  Bull market coming back soon to a neighborhood near you.

 

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MARKET CYCLE  —  TREND FOLLOWING  —  RELATIVE STRENGTH  —  BEAR MARKETS  

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Lone Wolf

As usual, I feel a bit like a lone wolf.  So many people still believe that the world is about to end.  But it isn’t.  It just isn’t.  Although it all seems a bit new, what’s happening now has happened before.

In the Spring of 2020, MarketCycle started saying that we were moving into a period of temporarily high inflation.  The last time that I saw an inflation spike come out of nowhere was back in the mid-1960’s.

In March of 2022, MarketCycle started saying that inflation would likely peak three months later.  It did peak in June (and it will slowly settle down to the 3.5% area).  With every inflation spike in history (in the United States), the stock market found its bear market bottom within 4 months of experiencing the inflation peak.  And the stock market, according to MarketCycle, bottomed right on cue in June of 2022 and with a retest that went a bit below the June low, as we initially predicted way back in December of 2021.  I should have burned my own prediction into my brain because I kept forgetting that I had even said this.  So, I believe that the bottom may be in and I’m currently bullish for a host of reasons, but if anything changes I’m certainly willing to quickly change my view on this.

We have to remember that stocks lead the economy by, on average, six months.  Stocks fall before it looks like the economy is in trouble and stocks rise well before the economy looks promising.  Although home-builder stocks usually lead even the general stock market, and they are now slightly bullish (although I wouldn’t own them), home prices and sales tend to follow the economy, so they present with a lag.  Home prices and sales will likely get worse until early Summer, but by 2029 home prices will likely be quite high.  At 10:00 AM EST today (10/28/2022) the much awaited home sales data for September came out (remember, economic data is ALWAYS lagging).  It reported a large 10% drop in pending home sales during September; it is likely to be even worse for October.

And if you are waiting to sell a business, the best time to sell is going to be no earlier than a couple of years from now… if you sell now, you just might regret it later.

 

Below are some charts that recently caught my attention:

The stock market moves higher over time with investors reaping huge profits.  It never collapses even in the worst of times, it merely hits temporary road-bumps.  The yellow lines show all bear markets from 1926 to today. (Chart courtesy of BlackRock):

 

At the end of the quarter, losses were running at an extreme high; this was as painful to investors as was the Dot.com Bust of 2000 and the Financial Crisis of 2008:

 

But when 2022’s bond losses are also included, this becomes the WORST bear market of our lifetimes. (Chart courtesy of Goldman Sachs):

If the record protective-hedging of portfolios in June of 2022 wasn’t a panic capitulation (fearful selling), then I don’t know what capitulation is. (Chart courtesy of Sentiment Trader):

 

And even if we have not reached the exact bottom, stocks are now being offered at fire-sale prices because “current price to true intrinsic value” has collapsed.  (Chart courtesy of Morningstar):

 

Inflation data is older, past data.  You cannot tabulate numbers for current or future inflation data because the numbers do not yet exist.  So, we have to keep that idea in front of our eyes; with data, we’re looking in the rear-view mirror.  The normal path is for the inflation of “durable goods” (IE, appliances, etc) to fall first, and this has already happened, and for the inflation of “services” (IE, pedicures, etc) to fall last, and this is happening now.  (Chart courtesy of WolfStreet):

 

Prices are already falling and the next CPI (inflation) reading will likely start to show this (the orange line will follow the blue line lower).  Chart courtesy of ING:

Some months back I wrote to clients that I felt that the FAANG stocks (large cap technology such as Facebook and Amazon) would suffer off of any potential market bottom and that they might lag in the new bull market.  This seems to be panning out as both Facebook and Amazon lost a huge chunk of their value this past week and this is on top of their already big 2022 losses.

Right now, whether we are in a large rally or a new bull market, cyclicals are leading the market higher.  MarketCycle holds a barbell approach of safer health-care, staples and low-volatility stocks on one side and small-cap-cash-cows and deep-value stocks and high-yield financial stocks on the other side of the barbell.  This past week we added a small extended-duration Treasury-bond position.  We also hold a managed futures position and a small allocation to gold (we just sold our long USDollar position).  We are even holding a recent 2% position in crypto-currency since it is making such an obvious bottom and because, after 7 years of non-stop attempts, MarketCycle finally figured out how to exploit the spikes of crypto.  And we are avoiding the technology sector because our prediction is that the financial sector (and value) will take over leadership from technology (and growth). 

Right now they are bullish, but if our indicators turn negative again, I’ll gladly switch back to include more hedging and protection. 

As I stated in a recent Client MarketCycle Update, this bear market has been a sort of moving target and it seems to want to fool the most people that it possibly can.  Whatever typically happens at a market bottom may not happen at all this time around.  People may wait around in anticipation of a typical bottoming process that may not even happen; maybe the market will “just go up” because this does not have to be a repeat of 2008.  Maybe it is already going up.  (Chart courtesy of Leuthold Group)

We have new leadership in the stock market:

 

WE ARE STILL IN A SECULAR BULL MARKET FOR STOCKS!  The normal oscillations in a long-term secular market are made up of repeating and alternating cyclical bulls and cyclical bears.  Right now, the cyclical bear market of 2022 appears to be giving way to the brand new cyclical bull market of 2023. 

People often quote the very smart Mike Wilson (of Morgan Stanley) to me and he has been bearish since late 2021 (he is one of 6 analysts that I will always listen to).  Please note that he has, just this past week, TURNED BULLISH.  He states that we are in a super-strong bull market rally that may prove to be so powereful that it may represent the start of a brand new bull market for stocks.  I like the sound of that.

 

 

Thanks for reading!

MarketCycle Wealth Management is in the business of navigating your investment account through rough waters.  There is a contact tab at the top of our website.  The process is affordable and easy.  The first 3 months are at no charge.  We work hard to earn our keep.

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MARKET CYCLE  —  TREND FOLLOWING  —  RELATIVE STRENGTH  —  LOW VOLATILITY  —  HEDGE FUND

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My Answers to Experienced Client’s Questions

 

 

This article will be fairly brief and easy to understand by just taking it one sentence at a time. This is coming out right after another recent blog, but I’m sending this out because I’m about to go “quiet” for awhile.

MarketCycle has clients that are experienced traders/investors.  We have a number of clients that work at or run hedge funds and we handle some of their personal money.  These knowledgeable clients sometimes have questions, especially when we call either a market top or a market bottom.  Frankly, some questions arise just because these very smart clients have too much information in their heads to allow for them to be able to see simpler answers.  There is an old saying that sometimes “we can’t see the forest because of all of the trees.”  So, my simpler brain is sometimes an asset.

Note, this chart, which is also shown again below, will be used for the initial questions and answers:

 

These are some of the most common recent questions/comments (in bold) from these experienced people… and my responses:

• Will the U.S. stock market reach its Fibonacci sequence number?  It already has, see the blue line @ #3 on the chart.  We have described ‘Fibonacci’ in prior blogs or you could Google it.  The only important thing about Fibonacci is that people believe in it and expect it to work and technical analysis people all react to it in unison… causing self-fulfilling prophecies.
• Will the stock market reach the strong support line represented by the top of the Covid correction?  A support line is an area where the stock market is likely to be supported and not fall further.  We have already reached and held at the major support line; see the blue line @ #3 on the chart.
• But won’t the stock market retest its June bottom?  It already has, see #3 blue arrows on the chart… a perfect double bottom retest.
• In late December of 2021, what caused you to know that we were going into a high risk period?  All of our risk indicators flipped to “caution” and market action implied “corrective bear market.”  Less importantly, the stock market made a double top per #2 on the chart.
• During the first week of January 2022, you correctly moved to a high cash position but then you moved into normally safe Treasury-bonds, and these then lost money along with stocks, hurting performance.  What happened?  For my entire long lifetime, except for now, Treasury-bonds have gone up whenever stocks have gone down, but the game has now changed and a new solution had to be found, and it has now been found.  Bonds will not react normally during much of the next 7-ish years.  I grew up in Kentucky where there is a saying that “there is no lesson learned in the second kick of a horse.”  This means that errors must be few and far between and that one must learn immediately and never repeat a situation, so that you don’t get kicked a second time.  Truthfully, my predictions are very often correct, yet “often” is an important qualifier.  [*** below…]  With any problem that I either see or experience, you better know that I work non-stop to find a working solution.
• Doesn’t the VIX Volatility Index have to go above 40 for the bear market to officially bottom?  The VIX is a measure of investor panic and resultant market volatility, all put into a visible chart format.  If one were to look at a very long-term chart of the VIX, it is clear that “40” is a totally meaningless number, so no, the VIX absolutely does not have to go to 40.  At this point, I do not see how it even could reach 40 without some rare & unexpected Black Swan event occuring out of nowhere.
• Don’t demographics (population statistics) show that the stock market will be weak going forward?  No, it’s just the opposite.  The only important part of U.S. demographics for investment accounts is the MY-Ratio, middle aged to young (MY).  The section of the U.S. population that steadily funds investment accounts (driving markets higher) is extremely positive all the way through to 2029.
• What leads the market higher in any prior bull market normally never leads in any brand new bull market.  Why is large-cap tech (FAANG) currently doing so well?  FAANG is Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google.  I feel that FAANG’s days of leading the market higher are over, however, FAANG recently sold off so much that it is sure to get an initial boost off of a market bottom.  I do still feel that technology will lead; I just feel that it will be the rest of tech that will lead longer-term.
• Double tops, didn’t the Covid bear market make a double top too?  Yes, see #1 on the chart.
• It didn’t make a double bottom but you called the bottom to the day.  Markets don’t always show double tops or bottoms.  Because the stock market fell so fast it was most likely to make a “V” shaped bottom as shown on #1-B… so we looked at our indicators that show whether the market had moved far enough down to constitute a highly probable opportunity for a bottom.  At the time, we expoited this opportunity by loading up on Closed-End-Funds at a massive discount to net-asset-value.
• It doesn’t look as if the stock market has made its final big leg down and this is what still scares me?  MARGIN is money that investors borrow from their brokerage house that they then use to bolster their investment account holdings.  It is a dangerous activity that usually backfires at the worst possible time.  Final legs down are always caused by margin being called back by the brokerage houses.  ALWAYS.  This time it will not need to be called back because it was pre-surrendered voluntarily (by hedge funds and institutions) as shown in our prior blog.  This particular recent bear market really doesn’t need to pull-back any deeper than it already has.  Fundamentals of the markets are quite strong so we are strong on both a technical and fundamental basis, yes we are, which means that the market could just keep climbing higher for the remainder of the year… and President Biden is about to release a type of monetary stimulus that is unlikely to cause a near-term inflation spike, unlike his Covid-checks, but this is likely to stimulate the U.S. markets for a prolonged period.

 

• Small-cap stocks normally lead the rest of the market up off of a bear market bottom… when will they break out to the upside?  They already have broken above their important downward sloping bearish trendline (for the second day on Friday July 29th) as indicated in the green circle below; this is very bullish for stocks.  Since small-caps lead, the rest of the stock market is likely to follow them up.  But remember, all bull markets zig-zag on their way up.

 

• But, because of inflation, isn’t the energy sector still leading the way up and doesn’t this represent the beginning stage of a bear market, not the beginning of a NEW bull market?   No, this is wrong.  Energy is now falling and early-cycle (new bull market) sectors are now leading as represented by the equal weight Nasdaq-100 stock index (QQQE).  This very important bullish change in leadership is shown here:

 

• Okay, but we just got a second back-to-back quarter of negative GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and this means that a recession is just now starting!  Nope, in the United States the NBER is the official entity that makes the call on all recessions and all 6 of the components at which they look are still bullish; 4 out of the 6 are still VERY bullish and not likely to change any time soon.  Just because numerous people say that we are in a recession does not mean that their pronouncements are factually true.  Right now, even the important part of the U.S. interest rate yield-curve (the 3-month to the 10-year) is not anywhere near inverting and thus signalling a recession.  (Chart courtesy of the Federal Reserve, NBER and Bank of America)

 

• But wait, aren’t we now in a brand new SECULAR (long lasting) bear market weak period?  No, the bullish trend channel is still fully in tact.  The trend channel is just one of the things at which we look to determine secular, long lasting cycles, but it is obviously still running up and this means that the secular stock bull market may continue on up for years.  The United States has led the way up, has been substantially stronger than other global stock markets, and it will continue to lead until this secular cycle comes to an end.  MarketCycle has been correctly positioned almost entirely in U.S. stocks since April of 2009.

 

Thanks for reading!

MarketCycle Wealth Management is in the business of navigating YOUR investment account through rough waters.  Give us a chance, we earn our keep!  It is easy and we help with the change.

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***

MARKET CYCLE  —  TREND FOLLOWING  —  DUAL MOMENTUM  —  LOW VOLATILITY  —  HEDGE FUNDS

 

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Up, Up, and Away!

 

There are seven things that always happen at major stock market bottoms going back as far as 72 years (some of these can only be tested back to 1950).  All seven triggered in mid-June.

MarketCycle’s proprietary indicators are shouting in unison:  “Up, up, and away!”  It is not logical to remain bearish upon seeing obvious bullishness.  If these signals flip back to bearish, which would be highly unusual at this point, then we will simply change our position (which is also logical).  But right now MarketCycle is fully bullish, although we’re using a barbell approach of defensive stock sectors & factors that are balanced out with early-cycle aggressive assets.

It is quite possible that a recession will still be called, although it would likely be a fairly insignificant recession, one in name only, a “technical” recession, a “profits” recession, a “growth” recession.  But not a “real” recession.  Maybe the powers that be will state that we have already been in a recession and then everyone will say in unison:  “Oh yes, I knew that.”   When the Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday (July 27th) by a whopping 0.75%, the only part of the yield curve that counts (the 3-month-yield to the 10-year-yield) not only did NOT finally invert, but it actually got steeper.  The most important signal of a coming recession got more bullish, contrary to what should have happened.  And two back to back quarters of negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) do not a recession make.  Meanwhile, so far 70% of corporations have beaten their quarterly earnings estimates, employment is still super-strong, the consumer is still steadily spending and insiders are still buying shares of their own corporations… at a record pace.

Since stocks move about 6-12 months ahead of a recession, if a recession does eventually occur, it may not be noticed at all by the stock market when/if it arrives.  Right now the stock market is focusing on 2023 and it has already priced in most of the events that could or will occur during the second half of 2022, including rate increases, recession, war, Covid, Monkey Pox, Cooties and the fact that a large swath of the globe is literally on fire right now.  The economy moves in real time but stocks move way ahead of the economy; this is why stocks dropped six months before anyone even considered that a recession was a possibility.

And we have to remember that stock prices actually reflect the strength of the underlying corporations, so stocks, over longer expanses of time, are distinct and separate from the economy.  “News” only affects stocks for short periods of days to weeks.  So, by December of 2021, stock prices had gotten ahead of the actual strength of the corporations and they had to come back down to earth… thus, the recent bear market.  Stocks are now fairly priced and we even experienced a capitulation bottom in mid-June… thus, the next bull market.

In mid-June we had an actual capitulation that went totally unnoticed; everyone threw in the towel and gave up hope.  Most traders deny that we had a capitulation… almost all traders are still waiting for the VIX (volatility index) to move above 40, but if one were to look at a long term chart of the VIX, it is quite clear that “40” is a totally meaningless and random number.  Bull markets, like the Phoenix, rise out of the ashes of a burned down stock market and the market has already burned down.  A number of things give evidence to this and a few are shown below.

 

The record move from stocks to cash is (contrarian) bullish. (Chart courtesy of Bloomberg)

 

Massive wealth destruction (because both stocks and bonds sold off at the same time, which is exceedingly rare) is actually bullish because valuations have been completely reset.  Stocks are now worth more than their current asking price. (Chart courtesy of Bespoke Research)

 

Margin debt, money borrowed for investment purposes, has been voluntarily surrendered… it is usually via a forced liquidation but this time it was (smartly) purely voluntary on the part of hedge funds and big institutions like Goldman Sachs. This eliminates the need for the usual and falsely expected final leg down for the stock market.  (Chart courtesy of WolfStreet)

 

Corporate earnings have likely bottomed or are very close to bottoming.  Stocks are now cheap.  (Chart courtesy of Haver Analytics)

 

Inflation has likely peaked, as MarketCycle first stated several months ago.  We were one of the first to see inflation rising (back in early April of 2020) and one of the first to see it peaking and heading lower.  In the bold red circle below, the purple line is accelerated inflation data, now moving down, and the higher grey line is an accelerated rate-of-change of the purple line, which gives an even earlier signal. (MarketCycle chart)

 

This next chart does not show inflation peaking, yet, but it does show expections for inflation to soon settle at 3-4%, exactly as MarketCycle stated some months back. (Chart courtesy of ING)

 

Inflation levels follow Fed ‘money creation or removal.’  This chart from the Federal Reserve (and their massive research department) suggests that inflation will be at 2.3% by this time next year (my estimate is 3.3%).  Why do I seem to concentrate on U.S. data?  Because the United States has lead in relative strength since October of 2011.  This will all change in the 2030’s, but right now, as goes the United States economy, so goes the rest of the world.  But the inverse does not hold; when the globe is economically weak, it has little affect on the economy of the United States.

 

This chart from the Federal Reserve shows that “prices paid” by manufacturers is dropping fast (far right on the chart)… this means that inflation is dropping fast even though most economic data does not yet show it.  Inflation is the thing that hurt the stock market for the first 6 months of 2022.  No or low inflation = good for stocks.

 

Inflation is when the things that you buy cost you more.  Items cost more because the price of the commodities out of which they are made has gone up.  The commodity that gives the clearest image of what is happening with all commodities is copper, also known as “Dr. Copper” because of its ability to diagnose.  This next chart shows the price of copper and it also shows the two times that we gave predictions (in this blog) on the future prices of commodities and inflation.  There couldn’t be a clearer image of the fact that commodities (and house prices) are falling (right side black line, straight down like a knife cut), copper having fallen from 5.15 to 3.38… a 40% price drop in just 4 months.  (MarketCycle chart)

 

This next chart shows bear markets that did not lead to a real economic recession.  Some recessions are in name only… so called “growth recessions” which are actually slow growth periods rather than deflationary & recessionary periods.  If an official recession is called, it may not mean that much this time around. (Chart courtesy of LPL Research)

 

Smart money… the red line below is the S&P-500 and it always eventually follows the (blue line) smart money, which is now very bullish even as the retail investor is still cowering.  People have a mental tendency to project what is happening today into the future, falsely believing that what is happening today (bear market) will continue indefinitely.  But real experience teaches us that stocks are going to go back up and then on to new record highs.  (Chart courtesy of Bloomberg and Knowledge Leaders Research)

 

Note on the chart below how the stock market always zig-zags on its way both up and down, even though, over time, it moves in a general trend direction for extended periods that can last for as much as two decades.  I don’t expect the trend channel (formed by the two blue lines) to end until sometime around 2029.  (MarketCycle chart)

 

Ed Yardeni, just another in a number of well known (for a reason) high cost analysts suggesting that the bottom is already in and that a new cyclical stock bull market has started. (Bloomberg headline)

 

MarketCycle has already seen our 7 bottoming indicators all trigger and our many bull market indicators move to bullish.  If we are wrong, and I don’t currently believe that we are, then we will be willing to switch our positioning to reflect the change.   We have to remember that the stock market moves 6-12 months ahead of what you are currently seeing in the news.  When you start to believe that a recession is coming, the stock market has already priced that into the market many months prior.  When you are at your worst emotional point, the market is already looking ahead by 6-12 months and it doesn’t care about your opinion.

For the record, most of Wall Street disagrees with my current assessment, but I generally find this to be a normal occurrence when the market is at an extreme.  Right now, all of those assets and sectors that would normally lead at the beginning of a new cyclical bull market are now fully leading the way up even on “bad news days.”  Assets and sectors that always lead at the end of a bull market are falling fast.  And assets that perform well during recessions are also now rapidly weakening.  Everything is lining up and rotating the way that it should be if we were moving into a brand new CYCLICAL stock bull market even while the overlapping and super-strong SECULAR stock bull market remains fully intact.  You will eventually see the S&P-500 @ 10,000.  So, perhaps it really is “up, up, and away!”

 

 

Thanks for reading!

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