Defensives

The post-2009 stock market upswing now qualifies as only the sixth cyclical bull market since 1900 to last five years or more. But only three of the previous five-year-old bulls lived to see a sixth birthday.

• Read more

• Read more

With no obvious technical resistance left for the U.S. stock market, we’re skeptical of the “long cycle” view, primarily based on valuations and “provincial” data points.

• Read more

Health Care and Consumer Staples valuations don’t look as dangerous as widely assumed. Utilities look expensive; conversely, the big corrections in the Industrials and Materials sectors have yet to create truly compelling valuations. The best sector for contrarians is Energy.

• Read more

Industry groups and stocks continue to set records with performance correlations. Defensive groups have seen the largest percentage gain to current correlations relative to the last five years. There truly has been no place to hide in this market.

• Read more

Risk Aversion Index accelerated in May, making it prudent to favor defensive assets near term. Expect small and gradual increase in long term interest rates.

• Read more

Superior performance of foreign stocks of late is likely only the preamble to what the rest of the cyclical bull market will look like.

• Read more

The “Fail-Safe” was triggered by the poor market action at the end of February, and we are moving towards a 50% net equity exposure. Caution seems prudent despite the Major Trend Index remaining in positive territory.

• Read more

Following the market rout of recent weeks, we imagine there are many clients sharing our nervous view of the stock market. For those clients, especially those managing long-only equity strategies, we thought it may be helpful to highlight some defensive groups that are scoring well in our group work.

• Read more

“Sell in May, then go away” goes that old piece of Wall Street wisdom. Problem is, this year everybody seemed to sell in May, so going away doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

• Read more

In our most recent update of our defensive group work, we examined industry group performance within the last four bear market cycles in order to determine which groups delivered consistent leadership.

• Read more

For clients unable to shift to equity alternatives or increase cash holdings, this month’s “Inside The Stock Market” section provides an update of our Defensive Stock group study in order to identify some potential hiding places.

• Read more

A look at which equity groups have historically held up best during market declines. We revived our “Defensive Equity Group” theme, with individual stocks selected from each of these individual defensive groups.

• Read more

Steve Leuthold’s commentary on how he would structure a defensive portfolio.

• Read more

Many professional portfolio managers are “equity only” managers, precluded from building up large cash reserves or considering alternative asset classes. Ideas for those who must be fully invested.

• Read more

August’s decline was the largest monthly decline since October 1987. Recommended Client Strategy: maintain most defensive equity stance available - if cash is not an option, concentrate in defensive equity sectors.

• Read more

For those who are looking to reduce their downside risk, we present potential Defensive Equity Sector Ideas, including Electric Utilities, REITs, Phones, Natural Gas and Value stocks.

• Read more

A performance check on defensives for the last two months.

• Read more

Many professional portfolio managers are "equity only" managers, precluded from building up large cash reserves or investing in equity alternatives. This section should be of special interest to readers that fit this profile.

• Read more

Major Trend Index turned "negative" March 8 and has continued to deteriorate.

• Read more