Strategies

It is common for economists to offer a forecast for the stock market yet add a caveat to the effect that "If a war shock or terrorist attack occurs, then I would have to modify my outlook." As such, it would seem logical to assume that...they must have access to a study showing that such events affect the stock market, right? The answer is no, for the same reason that they do not check relationships between interest rates, oil prices or the trade balance and the stock market. The causality just seems too sensible to doubt.

The belief that earnings drive stock prices powers the bulk of the research on Wall Street but this glaring exception to the idea of a causal relationship between corporate earnings and stock prices challenges that theory. Let me explain.

Whenever oil prices make a big move in either direction, there are some fairly standard arguments made of its effect on the overall stock market but, rarely, is any actual evidence presented to substantiate these more or less intuitive arguments. Let’s take a look at the data and see what the historical relationship has actually been between oil and the stock market.

Large numbers of people believe that an economic crash is coming next year based on a 7-year cycle of economic crashes that goes all the way back to the Great Depression. Such a premise is very controversial - some of you will love it, and some of you will think that it is utter rubbish - so I just present the bare bone facts below for you decide for yourself if it is something to seriously consider protecting yourself from in 2015.

No stock market crash (a decline greater than 15%) has occurred over the past 30 years without the presence of a Hindenburg Omen except on one occasion (the mini-crash of July/August 2011). As such, without an official confirmed Hindenburg Omen, we are pretty safe from experiencing a major stock market correction. On the other hand, if we have an official Hindenburg Omen, then a critical set of market conditions necessary for a stock market crash exists. As of September 19th, 2014, we have such a condition in the market...

The S&P 500 just extended its winning streak to seven straight quarters, and it's reasonable to wonder just how long it can continue...[That being said, however,] investors often enjoy a strong wind at their back in the fourth quarter, based on seasonal patterns and stock market history. Will 2014 be different [or will, as history suggests,] investors find a shiny new quarter during the next three months? [This article looks at these patterns to come to a better understanding of how the markets likely will perform for the balance of 2014.]

Statistically speaking there is an optimal time to buy or sell a security and knowing such, or at least knowing when not to do so, would be quite beneficial to your financial health. This article provides the answers as to what are the best months, and work its way down to half-hours of the trading day, to engage in trading.

In the investment management process...[it is important to] actively monitor both short- and long-term cycles...in order to manage expectations based on historical patterns...[as well as] oscillators - diagnostic tools that help us measure a security’s upward and downward price volatility - but to understand how oscillators work, though, you first need to become familiar with standard deviation and mean reversion. In this article, we do just that.

Financial markets are influenced by relatively predictable cycles and should play a big role in one's decision-making process just as they do in our day-to-day lives. This article takes a look at several and discusses their relevance to one's investment management process.

To understand how the stock market behaves it is imperative to realize that the stock market is overwhelmingly influenced by interest rates. It’s difficult to overstate this key fact. Interest rates are the bone and marrow of the stock market. More specifically, the stock market is ruled by long-term and short-term interest rates creating an overriding framework for what drives the market in which different sectors do better or worse at different points in the economic cycle. This article explains the behavior more fully.