There will be a time when the market trends have resumed a positive, healthy, trend.
Currently, that is not the case.
After have been stopped out of Emerging, International, Small Caps and Mid Caps earlier this year. We were stopped out of some of our core positions last week as well.
With a lot of cash on hand, and our bond portfolio (which we have consistently recommended buying bonds above 3% despite all the rhetoric about the end of the bond bull market) performing well, there is little for us to do right now except wait.
$SPX monthly -
There are two important points to take away from this chart:
With all of the signals now confirming a “bear” market is likely in progress, such does not mean there can not be substantial counter-trend rallies to sell into, and;
If this is indeed the beginning of a “bear” market, there is likely substantially more downside to go before a lasting bottom is formed and valuations are “mean reverted.”
SPY monthly -
excerpt #1 from article -
More and more evidence continues to mount that a bear market has begun.
Again, as I stated above, it doesn’t mean we can’t have some extremely strong reflexive rallies along the way. When they do occur, the media will presume the bull market has returned and encourage you to jump in.
Don’t.
excerpt #2 from article -
I think that Carl Swenlin summed it all up best:
“Less than three months ago there was a great lament about how employers couldn’t fill job positions because of a shortage of job seekers. This week FedEx announced voluntary employee buyouts, presumably to reduce payroll. In view of this, I offer you the Swenlin Basic Economic Theory:
Things get better and better, until they are as good as they’re going to get. Then they get worse and worse, until they are as bad as they’re going to get. Repeat cycle.
If you have a kid headed for college to study economics, think how much money I just saved you.
Seriously though, the BPI (Bullish Percent Index), which is the percentage of S&P 500 stocks on technical BUY signals, shows that conditions are worse than they have been for almost 10 years.
What may offer some hope to the bulls is that the low readings in 2011 and 2015/16 set the market up for major rallies.
The problem is that those setups occurred during a secular bull market, and I think a secular bear market has begun.
The two periods I have bracketed between 2000 and 2009 are probably more typical of what we are going to experience.”
“Based upon that, it’s probably going to get worse.”
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