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Which box do you check? The “status quo” or the “change of pace?” Keep in mind, the same decision in front of you turned out to be extraordinarily important four years ago. So, which will it be for 2020 and beyond? Large Cap Growth or Small Cap Value?

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As we Chinese watch the elegant display of the western democratic process this election season, we can’t help but think there are indeed people less fortunate than us “commies.” Worse yet, some of these people are Value investors.

According to FactSet estimates, S&P 500 earnings for 2020 are anticipated to come in near $133 per share, a drop of 18% from 2019 results. Given the widespread business disruptions and closures caused by the pandemic, one might have expected this year’s results to be much weaker.

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Factor analysis is a point of emphasis in Leuthold’s tactical research activities, and this note summarizes our Factor Tilt outlook going into the fourth quarter. Factors are return drivers such as Value, Momentum, and Quality, and research has found that factor results vary over time—but that does not mean they are random.

The CPI numbers are in line with expectations. The inflation impact of a “blue wave” will be much more significant and the markets are already trying to price that in.

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The big jump in Small Caps over the last two weeks has entirely reversed the segment’s summer underperformance and has technicians feverish about another “breath thrust.” Technically, it’s impressive, but we are more intrigued by the fundamental potential for continued Small Cap (and Mid Cap) outperformance.

U.S. corporations piled on almost $1 trillion in debt over the first six months of the year (a 10% increase). Corporate debt has now surged to 56% of GDP. We’ve argued that the level of corporate debt isn’t the problem, in and of itself. Rather, it’s what this debt has failed to generate that is the real problem.

Mid and Small Cap stocks underperformed in 2018 and 2019. However, after the collapse of February and March, these “SMID” Caps have largely kept pace with the torrid rebound in the blue chips. Today’s valuations are priming the SMIDs for a similar “decoupling” in the years ahead, like that following Y2K.

Long before policymakers’ extreme response to the COVID collapse, we feared that the Fed’s interventions were suppressing important signals from the stock and bond markets. But we now suspect that hyper-expansionary policies are suppressing price signals from the “real” economy as well.

“Bull markets climb a wall of worry,” the old saying goes. We’ve heard that piece of wisdom (or imagined we heard it) every week since early summer. But we doubt it was meant to apply to today, when the paralyzing fear is not of potential loss, but of foregone upside (i.e., fear of missing out, or FOMO).

We believe the worst outcome would be a drawn-out, contested presidential election that ends up in the Supreme Court. We review historical market patterns under several election-result scenarios.

We examine a variety of industry groups with noteworthy relative price action on both “reopening” and “closed economy” days. Our objective is to shed more light on the industry groups that are consistently moving together on these days.

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have become increasingly popular of late. We ask a seemingly simple question: “How do companies fare following a SPAC merger?”

Earnings estimates for 2021 are being projected above the records posted in 2018 and 2019. We ask the question, “How do we get there?” Here we present an introduction to this topic that we will examine at length and provide a full analysis in mid-October.

Outflow from equity-focused mutual fund categories remains relentless despite the recovering stock market, while bond ETFs continue to blow-out record inflows.

As steadfast believers that “price paid” is a major determinant of an investment’s risk and return, we snap to attention whenever we hear that an asset is selling at a multi-decade low.