Saturday, December 26, 2015

"Historical SPX Performance When Rates Start To Rise"

Lifted in toto from Quantifiable Edges, Dec. 17:
Fed announcing Wednesday that they will begin raising rates for the 1st time in 11 years. Since 1990 there have only been 4 other cycles of rate hikes. I decided to measure SPX performance from the start of those cycles. I found that one month later the stock market was trading lower every time. But one year later it was higher every time. Individual returns (based on $100k/trade) can be found in the table below.
2015-12-17 image1
Of course it is dangerous to draw conclusions from just 4 instances, but I thought it was interesting and somewhat noteworthy nonetheless.
I know I've said more than once we are looking for 2250 (and probably a bit higher) on the S&P before the game changes, but this chart, with the lower lows and more importantly the lower highs, does not look promising for the immediate future: