Research.LeutholdGroup

Turn on financial television at any random time, and you’re likely to soon hear the argument that still-high U.S. stock market valuations are “justified” by extremely-low interest rates. We’ve countered that these low U.S. rates are simply a reflection of the secular slowdown in economic and earnings growth.

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With the possible diminution of “alpha” in price momentum strategies, we recommend that sector allocators consider approaches that are more countertrend or contrarian in nature.

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We thought we’d get a jump on all the “End of the 2010s” retrospectives you’re sure to see next month. Though not quite yet the official end of the decade, the changing of the “tens” digit definitely has a certain gravitas to it.

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The fear (or hope) that U.S. bond yields would fall to zero or below subsided over the last month. However, the belief that low yields merit significantly above-average P/E ratios remains stronger than ever.

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The early August setback took the S&P 500 below its late-January 2018 high—and the time when we first trimmed net equity exposure in Leuthold tactical funds from a nearly fully-invested posture.

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Small Caps typically underperform during a bull market’s final phase, and our findings with respect to the Output Gap aid our understanding of that phenomenon.

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U.S. equity valuations remain considerably higher than those of any major foreign market, but there’s no denying they’ve improved from the cyclical peak made in January 2018. That’s true across the capitalization spectrum, and on the basis of both normalized and non-normalized fundamentals.

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“Zombie” companies are being kept alive by low interest rates and generous credit conditions, and the number of them, worldwide, has risen significantly over the past few years.

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While this year’s liquidity squeeze has yet to exact the toll we ultimately expect on the U.S. stock mar-ket, it has certainly contributed to a sharp compression in P/E multiples.

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Bobby Knight thought coaching would be perfect “if it weren’t for those damned games.”

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Question: Your “Estimating The Downside” section shows the S&P 500 would lose 26% if it reverts to its 1957-to-date median valuation level. The downside estimate for the S&P Industrials Index, however, is almost -40%. Why such a huge difference?

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We’ve generally spoken of the market’s “broad participation” as a good thing. And from a purely technical point of view, it is.

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Buying the S&P 500 on one of the worst possible days in history ultimately yielded a total return of +87.4% (+6.8% annualized) through the end of April 2017...darn, sounds like an advert for Vanguard!

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Call off the mortician, and bring on the pediatrician for the bull market’s 7 1/2-year checkup this month.

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The impact of atypically-high current valuations has become a challenge for style-box investing. High quality, mature dividend payers have habitually resided in the Value and Blend boxes, but investors have bid up those valuations as they look for alternatives to low bond yields.

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While cap-weighted U.S. indexes remain far below their 2000 valuation highs, in some ways today’s market presents an even more difficult hurdle for value managers.

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The divergence between S&P 500 Low Volatility and High Beta Indexes has emerged for the 3rd time in a year. The 3-month performance spread is even more extreme than it had been on the eve of either the August or December stock market air pockets.

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July’s Russell 2000 -6% rout finally deflated some of the Small Cap valuation premium we’ve been grousing about in recent years.

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Small Caps have staged a nice rebound in the last several weeks. On July 3rd, the Russell 2000 rose to within a fraction of an index point of its March 4th all-time high. But on a relative strength basis, the bounce has been pretty muted.

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