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Tops and bottoms are so much fun to predict, but key signals are not always accurate. That’s where a healthy dose of skepticism comes in. At EarningsBeats.com, we try to put as many signals together as possible, looking for corroboration. That helps to build confidence in the signals. For example, I turned short-term cautious last week for a few reasons. First, I’m a student of history and I know that the period from the July 17th close through the July 24th close is the 3rd worst week of the year historically. That covers all trading days since 1950 on the S&P 500 and since 1971 on the NASDAQ. The annualized returns for this July 17-24 period on the S&P 500 and NASDAQ are -16.37% and -32.12%, respectively. Also keep in mind that the worst period of the year is NOT May 1st through October 31st as the “go away in…