As we noted yesterday, the US stock market has been the only game in town recently. The S&P 500 is up about 8% over the year and the median stock in the MSCI North America is up 7%. Meanwhile the median stock in the MSCI World Index has not changed over the past year.
Read MoreWhile the intraday performance trend of the stock market isn’t everything, it often gives clues to possible directional changes in the overall trend of the market. One of the ways we measure the intraday trend of the market is to count the number of weak closes over a period of time.
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The United States stock market has been the only game in town. The US the only major developed country to have outperformed the MSCI World Index over the last year, joined only by the much smaller markets of New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Read MoreToday the Swiss National Bank removed the CHF/Euro peg and the Swiss Franc shot up relative to the USD. In the chart below we can see the almost 15% drop in the value of the USD relative to the Swiss Franc.
Read MoreThe MSCI All Country World index (MSCI ACWI) is comprised of two major sub-indexes: the MSCI World Index (80%) and the MSCI Emerging Markets index (20%). On a year to date basis, measuring average performance in USD, the best performing group of companies are from Turkey and the worst are form Colombia.
Read MoreBy almost any measure stocks are pricey relative to history. We’ll save the theoretical debate about whether such high valuations are justified for another post, and will instead illustrate with charts just how far valuations have come over the last five years. The Shiller P/E just made a new cycle high in December of 27.1x.
Read MoreWhile negative five-year yields in Germany and Switzerland has been a feature for some time, Japanese yields have up until now resisted the temptation to go negative. Today, however, the Japanese 6-year yield crossed the line into the realm of negative yields.
Read MoreWith earnings season on the horizon, we thought we’d take a quick tour of estimates around the globe. Positive revisions to sales and earnings estimates in developed countries have hovered around 20% to 25%, respectively, over one-, three-, and six-month time periods.
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IMF data released earlier this week revealed the largest ever quarterly decline in reserves held in euros.
Read MoreAs one measure of market volatility, we calculate the cumulative number of stocks in the MSCI World Index that open at least 2% higher (or lower) than the previous close over a 65-day time period. Extremes in the number of gaps often occur in conjunction with inflection points in the market.
Read MoreAcross two of the three regions in the MSCI World Index, the health care sector has been the best performer over the last year. In North America, measured in USD, health care stocks are up 29.13% over the last year, while they were up 5.96% in Europe and 2.53% in Asia/Pacific.
Read MoreSuccess in investing can many times come down to avoiding the major losers rather than always hitting home runs with one’s winners. Correct sector allocation plays an important role in sidestepping potential landmines that out there in the market.
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We have had a small pickup in volatility in the equity markets since October.
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The median year-to-date performance in the MSCI World Index with two weeks of trading left is -1%. The median stock was up 20% at this point last year and was up 13% at this point in 2012. The developed country with the worst median performance YTD is MSCI Portugal. The median stock is down 35%.
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The MSCI World Index is only about 6% of it’s 200-day high as of the close yesterday. However, 55% of the stocks in the index are down at least 10% and 30% of the stocks in the index are currently in a bear market (down at least 20%).
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