These chartbooks capture market themes which presently exist in a vacuum from which the oxygen has been sucked out by fears over the sell-off in bonds, its drivers and implications for monetary policy, and the AI story, which continues to capture the attention of bulls and bears alike. These two themes will continue to dominate the main market narrative as speculation intensifies over whether the data are pulling the Fed towards tightening, perhaps as early as this month, or whether it will ride out the storm with no change in rates. In the AI story, meanwhile, the next big test of the bull market’s strength and resilience will be the much-awaited IPOs of the frontier labs—OpenAI and Anthropic—which require significant and ongoing injections of capital to stay alive, even as they remain the principal conduits through which AI is transmitted to the real economy.
Read MoreI have augmented my US equity sector chartbook with two more similar chartbooks; a simple one with the four major factors—value, momentum and minimum volatility—and one with global country equity indices ex-the US. The factor chartbook uses the iShares global factor ETFs—IWVL, IWMO, MVOL—and VEU for a non-US factor. The global chartbook also uses iShares country ETFs. I have also corrected some errors in the cross-calculation statistics and the corresponding Z-scores.
The latest versions of the chartbooks can be found here (US sectors), here (global beta ex-US) and here (Factors), with there accompanying portfolio statistics here here and here.
Read MoreThe May 2026 edition of the US equity sector chartbook can be found here, with accompanying portfolio statistics here
I have made quite a few changes to the chartbook since the last time I ran it. I have changed my data provider from Investing.com to SheetsFinance, which makes it much easier to update the spreadsheets feeding the Python scripts that generate this, and any other market-data chartbooks, that I am using. The data now reflect one-year trailing total returns with daily observations—approximately 250 trading days per year. I have also added a cross-correlation rotation matrix, which tracks shifts in sector correlations with IVV, along with chart plots of rolling correlation Z-scores.
Read MoreThe September 2025 edition of the global LEI chartbook can be found here. Additional details on the methodology are available here.
One point on the methodology that I may not have made entirely clear: the aggregate LEI diffusion referred to below—and shown in the first charts of the chartbook—is not the same as a standard diffusion index. It is calculated as the sum of two figures: the number of LEIs that are high and rising minus those that are high and falling, and the number of LEIs that are low and rising minus those that are low and falling. This approach is designed to provide a more accurate turning point signal than a simple diffusion index. For the September 2025 edition specifically, the value for the G20 LEI, shown on page three of the chartbook, has been extrapolated to reflect a small rise. This mirrors the increase in the G7 indicator, as the G20 value had not yet been updated when the data was pulled from the OECD.
I seem to have a knack for releasing these chartbooks just as markets are hit with a curveball. The August edition came out in the wake of the soft August payrolls report, which opened the door to a dovish shift by the Federal Reserve and rattled investor sentiment with renewed concerns about a potential slowdown—or even a recession—in the U.S. economy.
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