Despite the U.S leading economic indicators appearing healthy, the global economy appears to be headed for a slow down, with only 34% of the 40 countries we track having leading economic indicators (LEI’s) signalling growth ahead, and the actual GDP-weighted Global LEI growth now below zero: The specific country details are displayed below: The European countries, representing some 25% of world economic output have taken a decidedly worrisome turn : Many of these LEI’s include sentiment data, and its probably […]

Those of you who have been following us since 2010 will identify us a perma-bulls. Even in the depths of the ECRI 2012 /Hussman recession calls we were firmly bullish on the US economy and stock market – quite contrary to the popular consensus at the time. Those subscribers who have been diligently following the RAVI SP500 forecasting model and its consistently accurate bullish forecasts will have noticed this year that all the targets we have set for 3Q2018 have […]

The RecessionALERT Valuation Index (RAVI) has been updated for 1Q17 and for the first time since 1999, is forecasting negative 10-year total returns for the SP500: The chart on the right shows that the RAVI continues to forecast SP500 decade-ahead total returns with relative accuracy, especially when one considers that the green forecast line has data points that are seen 10 years before the black line depicting actual 10-year returns. Now there have been a lot of valuation models predicting […]

Reading through all the positive press about jobs numbers and so forth, its hard to comprehend that the 4 main indicators used by the National Buro of Economic Research (NBER) to determine US recessions, had a narrow miss recently. If you recall from our popular 2012 article, the NBER does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. Rather, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting […]

The RecessionALERT Valuation Index (RAVI) is currently forecasting 30% growth for 2016 for the SP500 with its 1-year forecast model. “How the heck is this possible given current overvaluation of the market?” we can hear you say. Let us show you how this is calculated so we can put the forecast into context: Firstly, we know we have a very accurate 10-year forecast model with the RAVI: We can see that 10-year forecasts for the SP500 Total Return Index (including […]

Our first bear market signal was issued on 1 September 2015 when the Composite Market Health Index (CMHI) dipped below zero. Since then we had a sustained deterioration of the CMHI components to reinforce the signal, coupled with high stock market volatility. Although market breadth features prominently in the CMHI, there is another way to identify the onset of bear markets for stocks by observing the behavior of the percentage of SP500 stocks trading above their 200-day moving average. In […]