QMJ News and Press, Direxion S&P 500 High minus Low Quality ETF From 09/07/21

The economic slowdown we’ve been writing about for months officially arrived last Friday in the form of a particularly weak employment report. But the US economy did still add 235,000 jobs in August. The economic recovery is still intact, even if at a reduced rate of change. ...

Strategas chief economist Don Rissmiller discusses the recent hit to consumer confidence and Covid-19’s longer-term ramifications for the labor market and worker productivity. We had a strong first half, so it’s not surprising to see consumer spending come down a bit fro...

We’re starting the post-Labor Day period with the S&P 500 sitting comfortably with a 20 percent year-to-date gain, with the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite nipping at its heels and making up for the big performance gap with value stocks earlier in the year. Earnings per share f...

The next 5 weeks will be very slow for the number of S&P 500 earnings revisions, as we are now in the slowest part of the quarter for revisions (and will be) until October ’21 earnings start. The expected growth rate for S&P 500 EPS and revenue didn’t change much...

Risk-adjusted performance continued to rise in August for the Global Market Index. Sharpe ratios in global markets generally are elevated. GMI represents a theoretical benchmark for the “optimal” portfolio. For further details see: Major Asset Classes | Aug...

Given the sizeable skew in the distribution of outcomes toward negative real returns, it's extremely important to be selective in high-quality fixed income, and to be truly vested in one’s investments so that portfolios are not permanently impaired. In the short term, the commo...

The expected risk premium for the Global Market (GMI) ticked up in August, reaching an annualized 6.1%, slightly above the previous month’s estimate. Despite the comparatively high GMI forecast, the current estimate remains well below the index’s realized risk premium fo...

The economy overall is booming in a way that has the labor market healing far faster than thought not long ago. Yet, American workers already sidelined by two huge recessions (we still hadn’t recovered from the prior one) just are not streaming back into the workforce. The ...

The winning streak for American shares rolled on in August. US stocks rose for a seventh straight month and posted the strongest gain for the major asset classes. US bonds also lost ground in August. The Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index slipped 0.2%, the first monthly decline for the be...

After several strong quarters for value stocks, the last few months have seen a sharp reversal in favor of growth. The probability of any particular value stock being a “value trap” in a given year is about 30%. Value stocks are currently trading at a 40% discount to...