December 11, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “You are driving forward and the road you are on ends.  You have come to what the British call a T-Junction.  You can transition to one of two alternatives.  But you cannot stay on the road you are on. One alternative is good.  It is a hand off from central [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2044 By Steve Blumenthal December 9, 2015 “We’re looking at some real carnage in the junk-bond market.  This is a little bit disconcerting that we’re talking about raising interest rates with the credit markets in corporate credit absolutely tanking. They’re falling apart.” – [...]Read More >

December 4, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “The economy is like a machine.  At the most fundamental level it is a relatively simple machine.  But many people don’t understand it – or they don’t agree on how it works – and this has led to a lot of needless economic suffering... Seeing the economy and [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2094 By Steve Blumenthal December 2, 2015 There is improvement in several of the charts this week.  Don’t Fight the Tape or the Fed has moved back to neutral from -2.  For now, that is good news. You’ll also see that the trend data as measured by a weekly moving average [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2089 By Steve Blumenthal November 25, 2015 Overall, from a trading perspective, I am now with a neutral view on equities.  Our CMG NDR Momentum Index (my favorite measure) which looks at momentum and market breadth remains in a sell signal.  However, the weekly 13-week vs. [...]Read More >

November 20, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “I have long made the claim that the transnational nature of Europe cannot be sustained. The divergent economic interests of EU countries, some with unemployment over 20 percent, some with it under 5 percent, meant that it was impossible for all of them to [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2071 By Steve Blumenthal November 18, 2015 The significant signal this week is the -2 reading on the Don’t Fight the Tape or the Fed model.  The model looks at the technical health of the broad equity market (how are most stocks doing across the various sectors).  When the [...]Read More >

November 13, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “The European Central Bank is likely to continue negative rates, extend and enlarge QE, and acquire more balance sheet assets over time. ECB policy influences other nearby non-euro jurisdictions. Essentially, all short-term interest rates of [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2075 By Steve Blumenthal November 11, 2015 Following below is my market, investor sentiment and economic dashboard. Notable this week is that excessive optimism remains despite the recent market sell-off.  Excessive optimism is short-term negative for equities.  Our trend [...]Read More >

By Cinthia Murphy November 4, 2015 There’s much soul searching in the financial advice industry these days. What will its future look like? Thanks to a leap in financial technology, largely at the hands of robo advisors, traditional advisors today are faced with a changing relationship with [...]Read More >

10/25/2015 @ 11:17 AM Steve Blumenthal, Contributor CMG Capital Management Group CEO writes about hedging equity exposure in overvalued markets in his latest Forbes article titled Using ETFs And Options To Hedge Equity Exposure In An Overvalued Market. Some excerpts from the piece: "Many [...]Read More >

November 6, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “U.S. interest rates are already zero. Japanese interest rates are zero also. European interest rates are negative. All of these central banks have printed trillions of dollars in their respective currencies under various QE programs. They are at the point [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2109 By Steve Blumenthal November 4, 2015 Following below is my market, investor sentiment and economic dashboard.  In short, excessive optimism is short-term bearish for stocks, there is a high risk of global recession (strong data/chart below), no signs of a U.S. [...]Read More >

October 30, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “Whatever the form of risk and risk measurement one uses, the important thing to know is that diversification reduces risk and can be used to reduce risks without reducing returns.” – Ray Dalio Ray Dalio’s “risk parity” or “all weather” investment process has [...]Read More >

October 23, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal  “Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it — even though others may hesitate or differ. (You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with [...]Read More >