Weekly Market Summary

Last week ended with extremes in equities, treasuries and volatility. That combination, together with positives in seasonality, were the primary catalysts for a positive week in the markets (post). But the gains this week were well beyond anyone's expectations. From their lows, SPX, DJIA and NDX all rose 5%. In Europe, DAX and FTSE each rose 6%.

RUT, which had been the weakest index in the US, closed at its highest level since early July.  It is less than 1% from making a new ATH. The glass half-full view is that 2014 was a year of consolidation. It remains rangebound until it clears the March/July tops.

Separating Facts From Popular (But False) Narratives

Investors are confronted on a daily basis with an array of confusing and seemingly contradictory information. Is the economy expanding or shockingly weak? Are corporate profits improving or just the result of tricky financial engineering? Are investors buying equities or is it all just driven by the Fed and other central banks?

The picture is much less confusing if you take a step back to look at the bigger picture. Below is some suggested reading to help separate the facts from the popular but often false narratives.

The economy is expanding at a slow but fairly steady rate. Demand is growing and so is employment. The biggest weakness lies in price: inflation has been falling. More here.

There's More To Share Outperformance Than Stock Buybacks

Stock buybacks have been grabbing a lot of headlines. Goldman estimates that buybacks in the S&P will amount to $600b in 2014, a 26% rise over 2013. And this comes on top of a 20% rise the year before.

Fund Managers' Current Asset Allocation - December

Every month, we review the latest BAML survey of global fund managers. Among the various ways of measuring investor sentiment, this is one of the better ones as the results reflect how managers are allocated in various asset classes. These managers oversee a combined $700b in assets.

The data should be viewed mostly from a contrarian perspective; that is, when equities fall in price, allocations to cash go higher and allocations to equities go lower as investors become bearish, setting up a buy signal. When prices rise, the opposite occurs, setting up a sell signal.

Here's a brief recap of the past several months:

July: fund manager equity allocations reached a bullish extreme. At +61% overweight, it was the second highest since the survey began in 2001, a clear risk to near-term equity performance (post).

August: the Euro 350 dropped 8% and SPX dropped 5%. In response, equity allocations fell and cash shot up to 5.1%, a high level associated with lows in equities (post).

September: equities in the US hit new highs; Europe rallied, but fell short of new highs. Fund managers raised their global equity exposure and reduced their cash (post).

October: equities worldwide fell more than 7-10%; most markets were, at least briefly, negative for 2014.  Bond yields made new lows. Fund managers raised their cash levels back to 4.9%. Equity allocations dropped to their lowest levels in 2 years (post).

November: new uptrend highs in the US, Japan and Germany; cash levels fell and equity allocations rose to near their prior highs.

Since then, equities have again fallen. So it's not a surprise to see that in December, cash is now up at 5% again. This is a strong positive. But, strangely, equity allocations are also up to a 5 month high. To say that there are mixed signals is an understatement.

Let's review the highlights from December.

Fund managers increased their cash levels to 5%. Instances are very low, but over 5% represents bearish sentiment: this is where bottoms in equities have formed in the past.  The last three times cash was over 5% was in June 2012, May 2014 and August 2014. Each time, SPX rose in the month ahead.

First Major Accumulation Day in 14 Months

The markets hit a large number of extremes at the end of last week (post). More were hit Tuesday (post). These, together with positive statements from the Fed today, created a major accumulation day (MAD). These are days when up volume on the NYSE is at least 9 times larger than down volume.

That is telling you that investors overwhelmingly see equities as attractive or oversold at current prices. It's a bullish sign and normally (but not always) initiates a move higher in price.

As an aside, 'tick' on the NYSE was also strongly positive today. We look especially for a cluster of ticks over 1000 after a strong period of selling. This means that many stocks are moving up on the ask, not the bid. The highest tick today was 1350, one of the 5 highest of 2014. Overall, the profile of tick is consistent with a MAD.

Today's MAD was 17:1. It was the first MAD since the October 2013 low in SPX. In the past two years, the only other MAD was January 2, 2013. Both of these initiated long moves higher in SPX.