Okay, so, the June low in stocks wasn’t, on a closing basis, the ultimate low after all — not after yesterday. Yesterday’s session confirms the present bear market is still alive and well, making it the 12th longest in history, although the 24% decline (SP500) makes it, frankly, benign, thus far, in the grand historical scheme of things. Even our own (subject to change) downside target doesn’t get us to -30%… 

Just throwing that out there…

Recall a few months ago I shared herein when a young man asked me if he should take his sister and brother-in-law’s advice and go all in Apple and Amazon. My reply being, “when your sister and brother in law tell you that they’re sick to their stomachs, they’ve sold, and they’ll never own stocks again, that’s when you buy Apple and Amazon with both fists.”

Some of you may recall at what turned out to be the bottom of the 2015/2016 correction, we, with confidence, bought Apple, JP Morgan and Disney… At the time, sentiment was resoundingly sour, many were certain the next bear market was at hand (just a few % to go to make it official), and, lo and behold, amid all that pessimism, a durable bottom was formed.

Now, to be clear, I’m not calling a bottom, and, clients, while you’ve seen some rotation and a small new position here and there (cyber security and defense stocks most recently), you know we’re not backing up the truck right here… But I have to say, it’s getting very hard to find a bull, anywhere! 

So, while we see odds favoring a bit more pain before this bear goes into hibernation, there’s (from a contrarian standpoint) plenty of potential oomph for a bear market rally right here (it’s hard to breathe when your side of the boat is so crowded)… It does seem, however, that the rallies are getting faded awfully fast of late… So we’ll see.

I woke this morning to the following news items:   emphasis mine…

(Bloomberg) — Ned Davis Research’s Tim Hayes got a lot of
things right, from advising dollar bulls to stick around to
cutting his global-equity view days after the rout began. Saying that the worst was over for the latter in mid-August wasn’t necessarily one of them.

* A month after shifting his global-equity outlook to overweight from underweight, the firm’s chief investment strategist is returning to his negative stance again and conceding that the upgrade was premature.

This is what I’ve been talking about the past few days (videos)… I.e., another bull bites the dust…

And the following headline:

Durable goods orders decline for 2nd straight month.

Yeah, the Fed is indeed hiking rates into a weakening economy…

And, just sayin, this: 

Hungarian Central Bank Says It’s Ending Its Rate Hike Cycle

Hungary got after it (the inflation fight), as did the likes of Brazil, from the get go, and, hmm, they believe it’s already time to pause…

Hungarian policy rate (2-yr graph):

Asian equities were mixed overnight, with 8 of the 16 markets we track closing lower.

Europe’s rallying so far this morning, with 17 of the 19 bourses we follow trading up as I type.

US stocks are green to start the session: Dow up 298 points (1.02%), SP500 up 1.40%, SP500 Equal Weight up 1.23%, Nasdaq 100 up 1.87%, Nasdaq Comp up 1.82%, Russell 2000 up 1.56%.

The VIX sits at 30.36, down 5.89%.

Oil futures are up 2.37%, gold’s up 0.94%, silver’s up 1.98%, copper futures are up 1.18% and the ag complex (DBA) is up 1.25%.

The 10-year treasury is up(yield down) and the dollar is down 0.32%

Among our 35 core positions (excluding options hedges, cash and short-term bond ETF), 34 — led by uranium miners, AMD, Dutch Bros, Albemarle and oil services stocks — are in the green so far this morning. The 1 loser so far is our long-term treasury bond ETF.