Usually I look at my indicators at the beginning of a month. If I look at them more frequently, the changes are too small, and I don’t get the signal. In no particular order, here are my thoughts, both Bullish and Bearish:

Bullish

1. Contrary to what the bear in Barron’s said this weekend, the chart for the Merger Fund is bullish. They paid a dividend at year end, and the current chart shows that arbs are making money, which is bullish.
2. ECRI’s indicators are forecasting growth up, and inflation down.
3. Both emerging market stocks an bonds have bounced back well.
4. Earnings yields are still high relative to Treasuries, though if profit margins mean-revert, this argument is hooey.
5. ISI Group’s broadline retailer’s survey is showing some life.
6. Securitization of subprime loans, and CDOs containing tranches of subprime deals rated less than AA, are not getting done. These assets are getting sold to financial intermediaries that have adequate balance sheets to fund them.

Bearish

1. From Alan Abelson’s column in Barron’s this weekend, Henry Kauffman uses a concept akin to my “bicycle stability versus table stability” to discuss liquidity. The former is access to credit, while the latter is excess high quality assets that are readily salable.
2. Imposing tariffs on China is a real dumbkopf move. Eventually that will bite into the capital flow that keeps our interest rates so low, in addition to decreasing the benefits from the global division of labor.
3. M3 is falling, and significantly. The banks are pulling back from landing, and credit availability is shrinking. My M3 proxy is the total liabilities of the banking system. Works very well.
4. Fed funds continues to miss on the high side, since the FOMC meeting. The monetary base has gone flat, and there has been only one permanent open market operation this year, on 2/26.
5. Financial stocks are lagging the market.
6. The yield curve is still flat.
7. Equity REITs don’t yield enough relative to Treasuries.
8. Housing prices are falling nationwide.
9. Asset price changes are increasingly in two camps: safe and risky. Correlations within the two camps are high and positive. Correlations of the two camps are very negative.
10. Inflation remains high over the Fed’s comfort zone.

Neutral, or You Call It

1. Implied volatilities have bounced up, but are still low.
2. Corporate bond spreads have bounced up, but are still low.
3. Implied 5 year inflation, five years forward, has been in a channel between 2.2% and 2.8% for the last four years.
4. TED spreads are higher, but still low.
5. The swap curve gained slope after the recent mini-crisis.
6. The FOMC tightened less this time relative to prior times, if the measure is inflation versus the Fed funds rate.

That’s all for now. The two biggest bits of news are the tariffs on Chinese goods, and the decline in my M3 proxy. Bearish items both.

My current industry models can be found here. No commentary, just a service for readers. If you use it in value mode, pick from the green zone. If in momentum mode, the red zone.

I’m still looking for a way to document my performance to readers, but let me simply say that the broad market portfolio beat the S&P by a few percent. What worked?

• Fresh Del Monte
• Grupo Casa Saba
• Valero Energy
• Helmerich & Payne
• ABN Amro (sold too soon)
• Dorel Industries (wish they hadn’t delisted)
• Lyondell Chemicals
• Dow Chemicals, and
• SPX Corp

You see any commonalities there? Energy, especially refining. Chemicals. Aside from that, I don’t see anything really correlated.

What didn’t work?

• St. Joe
• Barclays plc
• Japan Smaller Capitalization Fund
• Nam Tai Electronics
• Cemex
• Lithia Motors
• Conoco Phillips
• Magna International
• Jones Apparel
• Deerfield Triarc, and
• Allstate (ouch)

Commonalities? Autos, maybe? Away from that, it seems eclectic to me.

In my balanced mandates, my foreign bonds and floating rate securities worked. High quality paid off as volatility rose. Really didn’t have any problems with my bonds.

Now I just have to do as well next quarter.

Full disclosure: long  FDP SAB VLO HP ABN DIIB LYO DOW SPW JOE BCS NTE CX LAD COP MGA JNY DFR ALL