Historically, a good measure of a fully oversold market has been a drop to negative by our VLT Momentum algorithm. YTD, it has been on the downswing, but is still in the vicinity of its highs reached during the Trump Bump. If the May bottom in the S&P 500 turns out to be the final low for the decline, VLT would be one of many suggesting the new rally is among the riskiest in market history.

In mid-May, S&P 500 Homebuilders officially became a COVID “round-tripper”: After a one-month COVID collapse of 53% and an ensuing rally of almost 250%, this year’s selloff drove Homebuilders to a May 11th close that was a few ticks below its pre-COVID high. Imagine what might happen if the housing market cracks? 

The dot-com bust was so long ago, most are likely unaware just how catastrophic the long-term Tech-stock returns are when measured back to March 2000. Technology has been the third-worst sector performer on a cumulative basis through May 2022; its +5.2% return has barely beaten 10-year Treasuries.

Stock market corrections are the result of falling valuations and/or falling earnings, and when both conditions appear together, investors are in for a rough ride. Thus far, the 2022 selloff has been confined to compressing P/E ratios, and we launched a research project to take a closer look at shrinking stock valuations in this market downdraft.

Read this week's Major Trend.

In the MTI update published this morning, we should have mentioned a bullish development in one of our weekly Sentiment indicators. Specifically, Net Insider Big Block Sales have dropped below 1% of issues traded, which boosted the measure to maximum bullish as of last Friday, May 20th.

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Investors looking to diversify away from the U.S. interest rate environment and/or the domestic business cycle may wish to consider Emerging Market bonds, an asset class with lower correlations to the U.S. Agg. Bond Index. EM bond investors can choose between several investment attributes to find the risk / return profile with which they are most comfortable. This study surveys the investment tradeoffs offered by each sub-category, as defined by ETFs focused on each particular asset class.

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Losses in the Russell 2000 Growth Index and the NYFANG+ Index have topped 40%, and the only true equity rockstar, spawned by a 13-year secular bull market, has watched her fund’s value drop by more than three-quarters. Yet there’s still a televised debate as to whether this decline is even a bear! Could there be a more devious creature on the face of the planet?

The CPI numbers were hotter than expected. Our Scorecard still suggests cost-push inflation continues to have an upper hand in driving inflation higher, an unfavorable scenario for risky assets.

Read this week's Major Trend Index.

The group is back to where it was before the pandemonium began, both on a price and valuation basis. While the move is likely to overshoot below median and historical lows, we think we’re closer to the final chapter than the midpoint.

Bulls have been quick to assure us that this market “bears” no resemblance to the dot-com bust. We agree—but probably for very different reasons. Among them are the conventional breadth measures, which provided little warning of this year’s January peak. And, the initial decline off January’s top has been much broader than during the first phase of the dot-com bust.

Those once high-flying FAANG stocks continue to run into rough pockets of air. Following Facebook’s 33% dive in February, Netflix (-49%), Amazon (-24%), and Google (-18%) followed suit in April as the latter two trillion-dollar firms posted their worst monthly returns since 2008. Only Apple—which still carries an enormous 7% weight in the S&P 500—has avoided a recent gut-wrenching plunge.

Market conditions leading up to the May rate hike were similar (if not worse) than those that triggered Powell’s late-2018 “pivot.” Free-market tightening of 2022 is apt to play into the path of policy. There’s likely a dovish “pivot” in store later this year—one that may be aggressively sold rather than bought.

Most U.S. dollar drivers point to a stronger dollar: attractiveness of U.S. assets; policy differentials; real interest-rate differentials; terms of trade; weaker Yuan; and capital flows/hedging activity. Speculative positioning, however, is a negative and suggests the dollar rally might at least take a pause in the near term.

The U.S. Aggregate Bond Index lost 3.8% in April, bringing its year-to-date return to an agonizing -9.5%. The realization that bonds can lose big money, combined with the outlook for stubbornly high inflation and continued rate increases, is nudging bond investors to consider a wider scope of alternatives.

The April haircut in the S&P 500 (-8.8%) combined with February and January losses brought a few of our 1995-to-date “Estimating The Downside” measures very close to their 27-year medians for the first time in recent memory. At present, downside to the median is now -16%. Based on 1957-to-date, the S&P 500’s estimated downside to the median is -30%.

Read this week's MTI update