Finance

May 1 marked the beginning of a 6-month period of unfavorable seasonality. Research published by Yale Hirsch in the Trader's Almanac shows that the market year is broken into two six-month seasonality periods. From May 1 through October 31 seasonality is unfavorable, and the market most often finishes lower than it was at the beginning...

A subscriber brought something to my attention that I wish I had thought of before. We think (at least I did) that the SPY (ETF) and SPX (S&P 500 Index) perform pretty much the same except for some minor tracking error. However, this is not the case because the SPY historical data is adjusted for...

We don't look at the 4-Year Cycle chart very often, but a subscriber's comments reminded me that now would be an excellent time to view the progress of this important cycle. On the chart below the vertical lines show the location of all nominal 4-Year Cycle troughs since 1948. The normal expectation is that the...

We don't look at the 4-Year Cycle chart very often, but a subscriber's comments reminded me that now would be an excellent time to view the progress of this important cycle. On the chart below the vertical lines show the location of all nominal 4-Year Cycle troughs since 1948. The normal expectation is that the...

Apple is a great company, and AAPL has been a great stock since early-2009. From that point to the end of 2011 it rose +300% in an orderly, relentless advance. The angle of the rising trend line was conservative and sustainable. Unfortunately, since the beginning of this year AAPL has begun a vertical ascent, which...

At Decision Point we keep a close watch on asset levels in the Rydex mutual fund group as a way of evaluating investor sentiment. An important result of these efforts is the Rydex Asset Ratio, which is calculated by dividing assets in the Bear plus Money Market Funds by the assets in the Bull Funds....

News headlines are usually more confusing than helpful, especially when trying to determine if stocks are overvalued, fairly valued, ot undervalued. At any given time there will be those who simultaneously claim that stocks overvalued and undervalued. Of course, they all have their own methodologies, which (surprise, surprise) support their point of view. We have...

(THIS WEEK'S DECISION POINT ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY GUEST WRITER ERIN SWENLIN HEIM) As many of you are aware, I've been doing my duty as a citizen of this great country by serving on a jury. It has been interesting, to say the least. The trial is still not over, but I hope to be...

The market rally on Wednesday was driven in part by a surge in housing stocks, which was triggered by a favorable housing report. Since the fundamentals of the housing market are not too thrilling, regardless of short-term gains, my curiosity was piqued and I pulled up some charts. The daily chart of the Dow Jones...

After reaching an all-time high in August, gold has corrected about -18%, but a recent bounce prompts us to take a closer look to see if the correction could be over. The most encouraging technical evidence is on the weekly chart. Note how the recent low occurred just above the long-term rising trend line. From...

The 30-year bond yield has dropped below three percent many times this year, dropping as low as 2.694% in October. It has been trending up since then, but today it looks as if the October low could be retested. On the daily bar chart below we can see that the rising bottoms line has been...

The US Dollar Index appears to be setting up for a medium-term double top. This week it broke down through a short-term rising trend line drawn from the October low after reaching a level equal to the October top. The PMO made a lower top, creating a negative divergence. The 20-EMA crossed up through the...