Research.LeutholdGroup

The extra months of QE “auto-pilot” failed to support some of the themes we’d have thought were the most likely to benefit from it—including IPOs, SPACs, Bitcoin, and the sky-high growers favored by the ARK Innovation ETF. Instead, the smart play with each of these assets was to ignore the ever-expanding Fed balance sheet and sell in February.

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Balanced portfolio investors face a difficult challenge finding equity alternatives that modify risk without overly reducing reward. The problem is acute because traditional choices have lost much of their historic appeal. Cash certainly lessens volatility, but, with a zero yield, its reward penalty is excessive.

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The 41% S&P 500 rally would be half as large if measured in terms of gold, and a “unit” of the S&P 500 now buys 70% fewer ounces of gold than it did in early 2000. Meanwhile, when denominated in either silver or Bitcoin, the stock market rally has been almost nonexistent.

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News that the Bureau of Labor Statistics may have undercounted the May unemployment rate by six percentage points should remind investors of the danger of taking government economic reports too seriously. Regardless of the figure, though, unemployment is no doubt near its peak for the downturn.

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