Russell

Authored by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist blog,

Think back to earlier this year. At the time, the market was convinced Trump was about to usher in a new wave of free market nirvana. Hedge fund managers piled into small cap equity long positions, confident the pro-growth policies would fuel a massive outperformance for the Russell 2000 index. Here is a chart I ran in my piece “The reality is something in between” which shows the extent of the small cap run:

"Something is off," warns RBC's head of cross-asset strategy Charlie McElligott in the introduction to his latest market noting that the swing in US fiscal policy optimism is coming at a critical time as the China's liquidity tightening is spooking the reflation story.

SUMMARY:

Authored by Mark St.Cyr,

If you were one of the myriad analysts, next-in-rotation fund managers, tech commentators, et al paraded across the financial/business media over this past week – you had a good week. The narrative of “earnings beats” together with the so-called “relief rally” emanating via the French elections helped propel the argument.

However, if one (once again) peered passed the headlines of Non-GAAP reporting alchemy that would make Issac Newton envious one could clearly see that all was not “gold.”

Was today the Yellen Fed's Irrational Exuberance moment?

Most are familiar with the idea of “Sell in May and go away.” Should one take this advice and sell a month earlier this year?

The chart below is from good friend Ryan Detrick, looking at monthly returns of the S&P 500’s performance, over four different time frames.

CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE