‘Tis the Season

‘Tis the Season

  This week’s featured chart shows that the S&P 500 stock market index is about to enter a seasonally strong period for the year. How so? For any given year in the stock market, the period from March to July tends to be strong. But if we take this concept one...
Cheerful CEOs

Cheerful CEOs

  It’s well-known that people like to spend money when they’re happy. Well, as our featured chart this week shows, that’s true for CEOs too. On the bottom half of the chart above, we have the CEO Confidence Index, which measures how optimistic America’s CEOs are...
Good IDEA

Good IDEA

  The U.S. Census Bureau unveiled a new data product called the Index of Economic Activity (IDEA) this month. The IDEA is a monthly composite of 15 economic data series produced by the Census Bureau. It measures economic activity in various sectors ranging from...
U-Turn

U-Turn

  This week’s featured chart shows that a key indicator of the economy’s strength took a sharp U-turn last month. The ISM Composite indicator rose to 51.3% in January, up from the previous month’s reading of 48.8%. According to the indicator above, this is good...
Call It a Bull

Call It a Bull

  The stock market is acting like it’s in the early stages of a bull market. That’s the message from the Early Cycle Composite, shown on the chart above. This chart looks at the stocks and sectors that tend to lead in the early stages of a bull market—call these...
Leading the Way

Leading the Way

  This week, I want to spotlight a research tool that does a great job of telling us where the stock market is likely headed next. It’s called the Leading Indicator Model. As the name implies, the model consists of 10 indicators with a history of leading the...