When research fails to meet the basic standards of academic rigor, its conclusions should be questioned. One such case is a recent paper, Real-World Index Annuity Returns, whose conclusions you should trust at your own risk. The paper purports to show that equity-indexed annuities (EIAs) outperformed an appropriate benchmark and relies on a sample of actual contracts obtained from insurance companies to prove its point. more »

The New York Stock Exchange publishes end-of-month data for margin debt on the NYXdata website, where we can also find historical data back to 1959. Let's examine the numbers and study the relationship between margin debt and the market, using the S&P 500 as the surrogate for the latter. more »

The S&P 500 index closed sharply lower this week, moving down to a new low for the downtrend from early May. There are two viable scenarios with respect to the development of the current intermediate-term cycle following the last Intermediate-Term Cycle Low (ITCL) in March. A return to the April long-term high of the cyclical bull market during the next few weeks would reconfirm the Half Cycle High (HCH) in early May and favor the development of a sideways consolidation formation heading into the next ITCL in August or early September. more »

The Shanghai composite index closed sharply lower this week, confirming the break below support at the lower boundary of the symmetrical triangle that we noted earlier this week. more »

There is a skeptical gremlin perched on the left shoulder for many investors. He often sneers at notions of "cycles" and other presumably predictable periods. When the word "secular" accompanies the word "cycle," that gremlin becomes even more scornful. Why do we use the term "secular cycle" with the stock market and what does it mean? more »