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Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 10-year Treasury yields bumped above 2% for the first time since July 2019. While that level may strike seasoned investors as insanely low, a 2% yield is now within a few basis points of the ten-year moving average of 2.04%.

Those who want validation to buy aggressively with the market down 10% can reference two historically reliable, intermediate-term sentiment measures with fresh BUY signals—and there’s a third one that’s also very close to triggering a BUY. The problem is that boundaries defining extreme psychology change over time—with a key inflection occurring as the market transitions from bull to bear.

The concept of “mean reversion” used to help build massive fortunes. Of late, a better mantra has been “maximum attraction,” as valuations and bullish psychology have matched or surpassed excesses of the Y2K Tech bubble. Meanwhile, corporate profit margins, once dubbed “the most mean-reverting series in finance” by Jeremy Grantham, have now topped those seen near the Y2K top by more than 50%.

Exchange Traded Funds came to life in early 1993 with the launch of SPY, a passive fund tracking the S&P 500. Subsequent ETFs followed in the S&P MidCap 400 (MDY), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA), and the NASDAQ 100 (QQQ). Still, six years after SPY’s debut there were only four domestic equity ETFs outstanding at the end of 1999.

It’s that time again when S&P and MSCI reevaluate the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) to determine if any changes are warranted. We have a more vested interest in these changes than most, as GICS is the backbone for our industry structure that feeds into the Group Selection (GS) Scores.

The U.S. 10/2-year curve just fell below the key threshold of 50 bps. Over the last 25 years, the yield curve proceeded to invert after this “Rubicon” was crossed. That doesn’t mean imminent trouble. The lead time of a yield-curve signal is lengthy, but it—and real yields—definitely warrant close monitoring.

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Well before the war drums in Eastern Europe began to beat, this stock market correction had already been marching to a different beat. The market’s confusion might be understandable, because—unlike during most of the post-GFC corrections—it has so far failed to “self-medicate!”

A persistent feature of stock market declines in the past 13 years has been that they have typically triggered a simultaneous falloff in bond yields.

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Mystery writers are fond of creating misdirection by introducing multiple eyewitnesses that each describe the crime differently. This plot device confuses the storyline until a clever detective comes forward to unravel the conflicting evidence and solve the mystery. 

This scenario played out in style returns for 2021, as shown in Table. Our first witness is a large cap manager who tracks the S&P 500 and reports another banner year for Growth, its seventh win in the last ten years. Our second observer is a small cap manager who watches the broader market and tells of Value’s excellent year. Meanwhile, our third bystander is an international manager tracking EAFE, who reports seeing a whole lotta’ nothing in the style derby last year. In this study, we channel our inner Hercule Poirot to determine what, in fact, did happen across domestic style returns in 2021.

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It’s been a year since the retail crowd on WallStreetBets—a Reddit forum—banded together to “stick it to the shorts.” The event was short-lived, but the effects are still being felt throughout the market.

It’s probably about high time that we check in with our past and present members of the esteemed 4% Club. For those of you not familiar with this vignette: back in the day, achieving a 4% weight in the S&P 500 had been a rare feat, occurring only during periods of extreme enthusiasm for technology, conglomerates or oil. The blessing of membership soon turned into a curse, with most taking just a cup of coffee behind the velvet ropes before being thrown to the curb because of dramatic underperformance to the rest of the Index. Our two most recent inductees seem to be following the proper established Club protocol for not lingering at the party too long. The two other members, however, have been receiving their mail at the Club for quite some time.

The CPI numbers surpassed already-high expectations. There are reasons to believe inflation has probably peaked and the pricing for Fed rate hikes will likely come down.

Read this week's Major Trend update. 

The market has started to price in a much faster pace of the Fed’s tightening this year. We have found more similarities than differences between recent market action and the historical patterns around the first rate hike.

It’s been so long since investors have faced a serious Fed tightening episode that they may have forgotten a helpful rule of thumb: An initial hike in the fed funds rate is usually a good excuse to dump some Consumer Discretionary stocks. 

The ink hadn’t dried on 2020’s PPP checks when pundits began speculating that the new decade could be a repeat of last century’s “Roaring Twenties.” That’s become a popular view after a booming 5.7%  real GDP growth and a nearly 30% stock market gain in 2021. Just how popular? Analysts are already extrapolating their bullish views into the 2030s! 

In San Francisco, thefts of less than $950 have been decriminalized, while in Minneapolis, police are so beleaguered that car thefts not involving injury are ignored. Is it any wonder that the economy felt free to violate its usual stock market “speed limits” throughout much of 2021?