Uncertainty over President Trump's new tariff policies almost knocked stocks into a bear market earlier this year. While growth stocks suffered the most, value stocks also declined. Even bond prices were lower amid the confusion. Stocks have since recovered and the bull market that began in 2022 remains intact. But inflation is still an issue and the trade war may still be in play. Is a recession in the offing? With all the puts and takes, and ups and downs, is it time for investors to cash in their chips? Argus believes that Min Vol is an all-weather strategy that is timely in any investing climate. Academic literature and, more to the point, returns history, indicate that Min Vol can deliver market-matching returns on an absolute basis and superior returns on a risk-adjusted basis over various time periods.

Uncertainty over President Trump's new tariff policies almost knocked stocks into a bear market earlier this year. While growth stocks suffered the most, value stocks also declined. Even bond prices were lower amid the confusion. Stocks have since recovered and the bull market that began in 2022 remains intact. But inflation is still an issue and the trade war may still be in play. Is a recession in the offing? With all the puts and takes, and ups and downs, is it time for investors to cash in their chips? Argus believes that Min Vol is an all-weather strategy that is timely in any investing climate. Academic literature and, more to the point, returns history, indicate that Min Vol can deliver market-matching returns on an absolute basis and superior returns on a risk-adjusted basis over various time periods.

The major indices posted minor gains on Monday, but things were not pretty under the hood. Further, the market sold off in the afternoon, giving up most of its gains. While only one day, that type of action is not what the bulls want to see. Selling into strength is something that the smart money does very well, but those players don't want to make their defensive moves obvious and try to hide their distribution on an up day. As we said, we are rolling into earnings season with huge gains since the April bottom. As such, it's possible that it may not be enough for companies to "just" beat on earnings and raise guidance. Most of the recent big gainers on the S&P 500 have low relative strength. So we classify this as a low-quality rally. Beaten-up stocks, going into EPS season, have low expectations, so it's not hard to please Wall Street. Generally, these stocks have decent short positions, so any kind of decent news will get the shorts scrambling and taking profits. Checking in on the S&P 500, we do not see much when it comes to technical trouble. The index has been riding its five-, 10-, and 13-day exponential averages higher since April 23. Every dip has been gobbled up, as more and more investors joined the bullish ranks. Remember, this has taken quite a bit of time in the context of one of the most hated rallies in memory. While we still do not see a lot of technical red flags, we do note a bearish momentum divergence with respect to the daily moving-average convergence/divergence (MACD) on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. There is also a minor S&P 500 divergence on the 14-day relative strength index. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)

Last week was another strong period for stocks, as all the mega-cap indices rallied to all-time highs (ATHs). That includes the S&P 500 (SPX), S&P 100 (OEX), Invesco S&P 500 Top 50 ETF (XLG), Nasdaq, and Nasdaq 100 (QQQ). As we have said, ATHs are bullish -- until the last one. For the week, the SPX rose 3.4% and has advanced in seven of the past 12 weeks. The OEX jumped 3.9%, the XLG added 4.1%, the Nasdaq rallied 4.3%, and the QQQ popped 4.2%. Sector strength again was led by mega-cap tech, with Communication Services up 5%, Information Technology 4.4%, and Consumer Discretionary 4%. Big IT winners were by GOOGL, META, NFLX, NVDA, AVGO, and TSM, while Discretionary rose due to smaller issues. Financial and Industrials were also strong for the week. We were asked an interesting question last week. Is it bullish if we get a "golden cross" with the SPX already at ATHs? When the 50-day average crosses above the 200-day, it is called a "golden cross," which is very close to happening. When the 50-day falls below the 200-day, as it did in April 2025, it is a "death cross." Going back to 1980, the buy signals (regardless of whether the index was at an ATH or far from it), have worked very well (such as in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1991, 1995, 2003, 2009, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2020, and 2023). Most of the sell signals were terrible. The times they worked were when there was at least a six-month topping process (1999/2000, 2007/2008, 2021/2022). In addition, the best sell signals tended to occur during huge bear markets, with two of them in the above list. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)