Market Timing – Page 3 – Harlyn Research LLP

Buying Dips & Selling Bounces

Friday, June 26th, 2020

What works and what doesn’t

Given the likelihood of a second wave of the pandemic at some stage during the rest of this year, we have gone back through 25 years of data in over 40 countries, to see if there are any lessons about what to do in the immediate aftermath of a very bad sell-off. We find that buying the dip is not always a successful strategy and certainly not as successful as selling the bounce. By far the best strategy is avoiding the really bad weeks completely, which is easier said than done. The uplift from doing this is so significant that it dwarfs any other strategy. Even partial success is worth the effort – and the risk of missing out.

Filed under: Categories: Global Equities, Market Timing, Tail Risk

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No Crystal Ball

Friday, May 1st, 2020

Introducing a new daily indicator

We cannot hope to forecast all the social and economic consequences of the pandemic, but we can construct a model which allows us to observe to their impact on equities in real-time. Our new daily models are based on the same process as our weekly models. They outperformed during three similar crises in 1998, 2002 and 2008. They also suggest that US Equities will not regain their recent highs before the model reaches a point where previous mid-crisis rallies have come to an end.

Filed under: Categories: Harlyn's Process, Market Timing, United States

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Asia: First In, First Out

Thursday, March 19th, 2020

Already producing better risk-adjusted returns

The recent volatility shock is as big as the one in the middle of the GFC and it isn’t over yet. It has also happened three times faster, in three weeks rather than nine. Fear is inevitable, but the are some interesting opportunities, especially in Asia. Countries like Taiwan and South Korea have managed the corona virus better than the US or Europe, while China is already recovering. If you wait for the bounce in the West, you may miss it in the East.
There

Filed under: Categories: China, Emerging Markets, Global Equities, Japan, Market Timing, Risk-Adjusted Returns, Volatility

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Chairman Mao is Coming to Dinner

Friday, February 7th, 2020

Or the fat lady is about to sing (choose your own metaphor)

Apple and Microsoft both look significantly overbought relative to US equities. Other US stocks with similar scores have underperformed by about 15% over the next three months. If this happens to the two largest stocks in the index, US equities will probably fall.

Filed under: Categories: Market Timing, Risk-Adjusted Returns, Technology, United States

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Two Week Warning

Friday, January 24th, 2020

Mean reversion signal getting close to the danger zone

Our standard PRATER process is well-correlated with the subsequent performance of equities vs bonds. However, the relationship decays when we get close to extremes. Here, we can use a modified RSI approach to estimate the potential for mean reversion. Our 25-year data set indicates that equities are particularly vulnerable when they have been accelerating too hard (RSI) in relation to the speed at which they are travelling relative to bonds (PRATER). Presently, they are accelerating too hard, but the difference is not yet critical. At current progress, global equities will enter the danger zone in about two weeks, after which the probability of a high single-digit correction vs bonds rises sharply.

Filed under: Categories: Equities, Government Bonds, Harlyn's Process, Market Timing, United States

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Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Thursday, November 21st, 2019

And why does nobody like Japan?

Two weeks ago, we had the lowest number of net buying opportunities for individual countries since May 2000. It’s hard to be bullish about global equities as an asset class when there are so few leaders. Japan is one of just three countries which look attractive on our system, but nobody seems to care.

Filed under: Categories: Diversification, Emerging Markets, Global Equities, Japan, Market Timing, Rotation

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Equal and Opposite Signals

Thursday, October 24th, 2019

Crossover for EM Equities and EM Bonds

The macro picture remains confused, so we are reduced to talking about signals which may appear in the near future. On present trends, we expect EM Equities to overtake their moving average and EM Bonds to drop below theirs. Both are measured relative to the equity and fixed income models as appropriate. At first, the switching opportunity would be for EM specialists, but it may develop wider significance.

Filed under: Categories: Emerging Markets, Equities, Government Bonds, Market Timing

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Rhyming or Repeating

Thursday, August 15th, 2019

Our asset allocation models look like August 2018

Our asset allocation models suggest that we may be close to an episode when individual threats to equity returns combine to create a “super-risk”. These episodes are too complex to forecast with any certainty, because financial market participants will respond differently than they did a year ago, when we last saw this pattern. In the short term, investors should prepare to go to maximum underweight in equities.

Filed under: Categories: China, Market Timing, Risk-Adjusted Returns, Seasonality, United States

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Message from the Black Box

Thursday, May 2nd, 2019

July is the next danger period for US equities

Our models are actually very simple but they often look like a black box to outsiders. We have three separate indicators which all suggest that July will be a dangerous period for US equities. All of them are based on the way in which our models have behaved over the last 24 years. Of course, things may be different this time. We will just have to wait and see.

Filed under: Categories: Global Equities, Harlyn's Process, Market Timing, Seasonality

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Capitulation and the rule of 35

Thursday, April 18th, 2019

Managing risk on the downside

Equity bears are capitulating. The priority is to protect their portfolios from further underperformance by getting closer to their benchmark equity weight. Our models have always shown that the worst sample periods for our process are between 29-35 weeks. The behavioural explanation would be that fund managers are allowed to be wrong for two quarters in a row, but not for three. Cutting a losing position during the third quarter of the mistake tends to be more damaging than doing it early in the second.

Filed under: Categories: Diversification, Global Equities, Government Bonds, Harlyn's Process, Market Timing

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