About This Correction

The S&P 500 has fallen about 6% since the end of the first quarter.  The US economy seems to be doing OK given all of our headwinds of structural unemployment and our own debt issues, not to mention this little thing called an election.  None of it matters as the markets are fixated with Greece.  Readers of this column will note that we flagged a possible issue of market softness back on March 6th.  We lowered our market ratings back then to NET MARKET SELL for the short term and NET MARKET NEUTRAL for the intermediate term.  We upped our short term ratings on April 11th but have not changed our intermediate outlook, although we may be close to doing so.   You can go here for a definition of what those terms mean. 

Readers of this blog will know that I place a lot of emphasis on cyclical patterns.  Given what's been going on recently with stocks I thought a refresher on my thinking on that subject might be timely.  Therefore I'm going to publish below a reprint of the Q&A article I wrote about a month ago on market seasonality.

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client and personal accounts.