Research.LeutholdGroup

With new leadership in Washington and--with large-cap growth’s decade-long stranglehold on outperformance looking shakier than ever--a potential leadership change in equity markets as well, Leuthold Group CIO Doug Ramsey will share his current views and what he will be looking out for in 2021.

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As we turn the page on 2020, a peek ahead to the S&P 500’s 2021 operating earnings is probably in order. You never know, earnings and valuations might be important again one day.

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Driven by massive government stimulus, an imminent vaccine rollout, and the expectation of record earnings in 2021, investors seem to be on the verge of embracing a move away from Large Cap Growth stocks in earnest. The leading candidates offered as broad-based alternatives to Large Growth (LG) include Value, Small Caps, and Emerging Markets.

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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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Perusing current equity-investment possibilities highlights a diverse set of choices. Focusing on only two primary attributes—relative price and relative earnings—illustrates considerable diversity among the major investment styles.

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Although COVID-19 has significantly impacted everyone, its economic wake has been unusually bifurcated compared to past crises. Since the pandemic requires social distancing, the recession and its aftermath have been concentrated disproportionately among “social and lower-earning” industries. This odd, if not unique, divergence in the economic fortunes of low and high-earning industries perhaps explains how overall real GDP, the unemployment rate, the housing industry, manufacturing activities, and other economic segments have managed to recover quickly and powerfully.

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FAANG has dramatically outperformed Large Cap Growth the past ten years, but is has become cheaper and slightly less growth-oriented in the process. We examine the extent FAANG performance has carried through to the rest of the Large Cap Growth universe and how to get growth without them.

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Replay of a ZOOM Call with Chief Investment Officer, Doug Ramsey. He shares his thoughts and observations on today's market and what he sees looking ahead and answers questions.

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Scott Opsal looks at S&P 500 forward earnings for 2021 and how they stack up against pre-pandemic economic healthy year of 2019.

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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.

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Look, quick! Before it reverses! The Top-5 firms in the S&P 500 have underperformed in September! I’m sorry, you’ll have to forgive my sense of urgency, but the astounding speed and consistency in which these firms have outperformed may have burned the notion into my brain that they can only “go up” (or at the very least beat the index).

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Replay of a ZOOM Call with Chief Investment Strategist, Jim Paulsen where he shares his thoughts and observations on today's market and what he sees looking ahead.

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Doug Ramsey, CIO at The Leuthold Group gives his mid-year update, provides some valuable context for the current market, and presents his outlook for the rest of 2020. Scott Opsal, Director of Equities and Portfolio Manager, also gives a brief update on portfolio positioning and asset allocation considerations before a Q&A with both Doug and Scott.

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Join us for a Zoom Call with Jim Paulsen where he will share his thoughts and observations on today's market and what he sees looking ahead.

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In the immortal words of Lloyd Bridges, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking.” Let’s put aside this week’s market turmoil and concentrate for a moment on... “concentration.” Market concentration, that is. Close your eyes and think back to those carefree days of mid-February.

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Investing overseas has mostly been a black hole through this bull market. Price momentum remains terribly weak for international stock markets and this has given investors pause every time they consider reallocating some assets offshore.

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Super-easy monetary policy has been blamed for the rise in income and wealth inequality in recent years, and more recently we’d fault the Fed for performance inequality within the stock market.

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Extraordinarily low bond yields—often negative bond yields outside the U.S.—have significantly elevated investor anxieties, leaving the impression of facing a high-risk, low-return world. Consequently, during much of the contemporary expansion, the existence of very low yields has pushed several investors toward a more conservative portfolio allocation.

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The S&P 500 did not suffer a bear market last year. At least not by the conventional definition of a 20% decline. However, it was razor close—dropping 19.8% from its highest- to lowest-daily close. Given that, in every way except for -0.2%, the U.S. stock market did suffer a Bear last year, how does its 2019 rally compare thus far to the average “Bull Market Rally?”

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During a decade characterized by surging equity markets and the proliferation of smart beta products, the best performing quantitative factor was Sales Stability.

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