Market Cycles and Regimes
Markets move in cycles — expansions, peaks, contractions, and troughs. These articles explain how to identify where you are in the cycle, how different asset classes perform in each regime, and why understanding the cyclical nature of markets helps you avoid the trap of extrapolating recent performance forever.
When to Hold Cash or Defensive Assets
Understand when to hold cash, Treasury bills, defensive stocks, or gold. Learn opportunity costs, regime triggers, and disciplined redeployment strategies.
Building Regime Models for Portfolios
Learn to construct simple regime-based allocation models using trend, volatility, and macro indicators while avoiding common backtesting pitfalls.
Lessons from Historical Crashes
Every major market crash feels unprecedented while you're living through it -- and every single one has been followed by a recovery that rewarded investors who stayed put. Since 1928, the S&P 500 has endured 27 bear markets, averaging a 35.8% peak-to-trough decline over roughly 9.6 months. The av...
Business Cycle Stages and Market Behavior
Learn how the four phases of the business cycle affect stocks, bonds, and commodities, plus key indicators to identify each stage.
Credit Cycle Evolution and Signals
Understand the four stages of the credit cycle, from repair through downturn, and learn which signals help investors anticipate credit market transitions.
Monitoring Market Breadth and Internals
Price indexes tell you where the market went. Breadth tells you how it got there—and whether you should trust the move. When the S&P 500 rallied to new highs in February 2025 while internal participation was quietly deteriorating, investors who tracked only price missed the warning. The index the...
Seasonality Patterns in US Markets
Examine historical seasonal patterns in US stocks, including Sell in May, the January effect, and holiday periods, along with their statistical limitations.
Playbooks for Late-Cycle Investing
How to identify late-cycle environments and adjust portfolios toward defensive positioning, quality assets, and reduced risk exposure.
Commodities as Cycle Signals
Learn how copper, oil, gold, and commodity indexes signal economic cycle turns. Understand Dr. Copper, oil demand correlation, and gold as a risk indicator.
Factor Leadership Across Market Cycles
Explore how value, growth, size, quality, and momentum factors rotate leadership across market cycles and what drives these systematic return patterns.
Recession Indicators Investors Monitor
Discover the key economic indicators investors track to anticipate recessions, from yield curves to jobless claims and PMI readings.
Inflationary vs. Deflationary Regimes
Explore how inflation and deflation regimes affect asset class performance and learn portfolio positioning strategies for each environment.
Liquidity Regimes and Financial Conditions
Learn how Federal Reserve liquidity measures and financial conditions indices affect asset valuations and market behavior.
Using Risk-On/Risk-Off Dashboards
Learn to build and interpret risk-on/risk-off dashboards using VIX, credit spreads, USD, and Treasury yields to identify market regimes.
Secular Bull and Bear Market Definitions
Understand the difference between secular and cyclical market trends, with historical examples from 1982-2000 and 2000-2013.
Sentiment Indicators and Positioning Data
In March 2009, the AAII bullish reading dropped to 18.9% while the S&P 500 sat at 676. Eleven years later, on March 23, 2020, the VIX hit 66, the put-call ratio's 10-day average reached 1.28, and AAII bullish sentiment fell to 20.3%. In both cases, every sentiment indicator screamed panic -- and ...
Volatility Regimes and VIX Thresholds
Learn how VIX levels define volatility regimes, from calm markets below 15 to crisis conditions above 30, and what each regime means for investors.
Glossary: Market Cycle Terminology
Master 50 essential market cycle terms covering cycle phases, economic indicators, regimes, and investment strategies with clear, practical definitions.
Yield Curve Inversions and Timing Lags
Understand why the yield curve inverts before recessions, compare 2s10s vs 3m10s spreads, and analyze historical lead times and market performance.
Opportunistic Strategies Post-Recession
Recessions destroy wealth in predictable patterns, and recoveries rebuild it in equally predictable ones. The investors who capture the most value aren't the ones who time the exact bottom (nobody does that consistently). They're the ones who position before confirmation arrives, scale in through...