Fed Policy-Driven Super Rallies and Corrections in US Stocks | Sven Henrich

The US market is at a critical juncture with a contentious election, a Fed meeting, and numerous earnings reports on the horizon. A significant liquidity rally is underway, raising hopes for a year-end rally, yet concerns about a potential corrective move linger, especially after an 11-month rise. Despite strong bullish sentiment, skepticism remains due to insufficient changes in underlying conditions and earnings not meeting expectations. The S&P 500 is now at approximately 5,800, with some analysts projecting levels as high as 6,600, but these optimistic forecasts prompt concerns about sustainability.

Super rallies and corrections in the S&P, driven by interest rate cuts and hikes (2016–2024).

 

Liquidity-driven super rallies, influenced by Fed policy on interest rates, are characterized by prolonged market increases with minimal price discovery. The first major super rally in the above chart followed the earnings recession of 2015-2016, fueled by tax cuts and global quantitative easing. Subsequent rallies occurred despite rate hikes, indicating a strong influence from central banks and government policies. These rallies often persist until liquidity conditions shift, such as through rate increases or unexpected events. 

 

Currently, global central banks are signaling easing policies, contributing to the ongoing liquidity rally. Fiscal dominance, marked by significant deficits, plays a crucial role in this environment. The unprecedented $1.6 trillion deficit in 2023 raises questions about recession potential amid fiscal stimulus. Past experiences show that downside movements typically arise when liquidity changes. The current market situation highlights a disconnect between strong policy support and underlying economic conditions. Overall, these factors suggest that the rally extend through the end of the year or into 2025, but risks remain.

 

Reference:

Sven Henrich (October 27, 2024) - NorthCast Market Update: Markets at a Crossroad. (video)

Markets expect the Federal Open Market Committee to 

cut interest rates again by 0.25% on Thursday, November 7.

 

The median Nasdaq 100 (NDX) return from October 27th to December 31st is +11.74% since 1985.  
The median S&P 500 return from October 27th to December 31st in election years is +6.25% since 1928. 

— Goldman Sachs, October 27, 2024.

 

See also:
Sven Henrich (January 14, 2024) - The Cynic’s Guide to Markets.

S&P 500 Seasonal Pattern for the Presidential Election Cycle 2024 - 2027

 S&P 500 Seasonal Pattern for the Presidential Election Cycle 2024 - 2027.
4 Year Presidential Cycle in line with the Decennial Cycle.

The chart above is an attempt to merge the Decennial Cycle with the Four-Year Presidential Election Cycle by creating a composite of all US presidential elections that took place since 1900 in the fourth year of a decade (1904, 1924, 1944, 1964, 1984, 2004). 

 S&P 500 Seasonal Pattern for the Election Year 2024.

 

S&P 500 Seasonal Pattern for Q4 of the Election Year 2024.

 

 S&P 500 Seasonal Pattern for October of the Election Year 2024.

 

 S&P 500 Seasonal Pattern for November of the Election Year 2024.

 

 S&P 500 Seasonal Pattern for December of the Election Year 2024.

 S&P 500 Seasonal Pattern for the Post-Election Year 2025.

 

S&P 500 Seasonal Pattern for Q1 of the Post-Election Year 2025.

Cross check dates with historical trends, price probabilities, news calendar, Hurst cycles, etc.

The four-year presidential election cycle has a profound impact on the economy and the stock market, with a distinct pattern emerging over time. Notably, the four-year cycle has become a more significant driver of market behavior than the decennial cycle, except in extraordinary years such as those ending in five and eight. In recent decades, the US has experienced a period of unprecedented prosperity, with returns distributed relatively evenly across the decade. Fourth years, in particular, have tended to perform better than average. Looking back, the last six election years ending in four (2004, 1984, 1964, 1944, 1924, and 1904) the S&P 500 averaged a full-year gain of 14%.

 Decennial Cycle: Average annual change in the DJIA (1881-2023).

The 5th year is by far the best year of the decennial cycle. In the Dow Jones Industrial Average out of the last 14 "5th years", 12 were up averaging a return of 26% per year. The only two 5th years that have ever been negative in the history of the DJIA were 2005 (-0.61%) and 2015 (-2.2%).

See also:

Jeffrey A. Hirsch (2011) - S&P 500 Projection Chart from 2009 to 2025. 

TPR - Seasonality.

S&P 500 Election Year Pattern during Fourth Years of a Decade, 1904 - 2024

Seasonal Pattern of the S&P 500 in U.S. Election Years during Fourth Years of a Decade (1904-2024): Composite Line of Election Years (1904, 1924, 1944, 1964, 1984, and 2004; based on daily closes from Stooq) vs. S&P 500 Performance from January 1 to September 27, 2024 (y-axis scale: percentages).

Same values with different scaling of the y-axis.

See also:

Wayne Whaley (September 21, 2024) - S&P 500 in Q4 After New 12-Month High in September.

Tom McClellan (March 29, 2024) - Crude Oil's 10-Year Leading Indication for US Stock Market.

Jeffrey A. Hirsch (2020) - Election-Year October Market Performance Volatile since 1950.

2016 - Presidential Cycle - Seasonal Cycle - Decennial Cycle of DJIA — January 5, 2016.
Jeffrey A. Hirsch (2011) - S&P 500 Projection Chart from 2009 to 2025.

Crude Oil's 10-Year Leading Indication for US Stock Market | Tom McClellan

One of the big picture forecasting tools is crude oil prices as a leading indication for the overall stock market. The first chart shows crude oil prices back to 1890 compared to the Dow Jones Industrial Average plotted on logarithmic scales. The price of crude oil is shifted forward by 10 years. The correlation isn't always perfect, but generally speaking, when there is a rise in crude oil prices, 10 years later, there is a rise in the stock market. When crude oil prices go flat, the stock market goes flat. 

We are not yet quite at that 10 year echo point in stocks, which would equate to June of 2024, 10 years after crude oil peaked. That means the next few years are not going to be so great, especially between now and early 2026. Early 2026 will be a great time for investors to ride the stock market long all the way to 2028. 

 

Quoted from:
Tom McClellan (Mar 28, 2024) - 'Unpleasant Time' Ahead For Stock Market. (video)

 

2024 S&P 500 Election Year Seasonal Pattern │ Jeff Hirsch

 2024 is an Election Year and the sitting President is running for office again. 

In this constellation the S&P 500 typically tends to (1.) trend higher from early January into mid February;  

(2.) decline into late March; (3.) rise up for the rest of the year, especially after elections.

Also take note of Larry Williams' re-election pattern.

 

The S&P 500's average annual return during Election Years is 11.6%. Since 1833 the fourth year in the Decennial Pattern has been up 13 vs 6 times down with an average annual return of 5.22%. Over the past 30 years, January gains have occurred 17 times (57%), while losses numbered 13 (43%), barely better than the flip of a coin. In bull markets, New Moons are bottoms, and Full Moons are tops. In bear markets, New Moons are tops, and Full Moons are bottoms. More often than not, stocks will rise from around the 7th to around the 14th calendar day of a month, fall from the 14th to the 20th, and rise from the 20th to the 25th.

 

In 1967 Yale Hirsch published the first Stock Trader’s Almanac and presented the Four Year Presidential Election Cycle as an significant and predictive indicator of stock market performance. The outcomes are relatively steady, regardless of the president’s political leanings in office at the time, and the year after each presidential election marks the start of a new four-year stock market cycle. Considering annual returns of each year in the four year cycle, the Pre-Election Year (2023) is considered best, and  the Election Year second. The most predictive period of the year is November 19th to January 19th. Wayne Whaley coined it a 'Turn of the Year (TOY) Barometer'. If the return of this 2-month period is greater than 3%, a bullish signal is given, and the market is very likely to do well over the following 12 months. If the return is 0-3%, the signal is considered neutral; and if the return is negative, the signal is bearish, and returns very poor. Currently the S&P 500 still trades some 6% above the November 19 level.

 

The 250 year US empire live cycle concluded in 2023. Demise by folly overstretch. Uni-polar global supremacy is over, and Russia, China and Iran stronger than ever. A multi-polar world of worlds now knows how to deal with a paper-tiger gone mad. All star-spangled striped monsters check-mated, defeated and unveiled 24/7 along the many battle fronts on the globe. Project Ukraine lost. Now supervising genocide in Palestine. Yemen's Ansar Allah controls the Bab al-Mandab and launches full front attacks against the hegemon. An emerging Muslim alliance will liberate the Holy Land. Iran may shut down the Gibraltar strait any moment. The Taliban will enter Jerusalem and flatten Tel Aviv. Zionist Saudis and emirs doomed. Revolutionary Shia will root them out. The fever pitch increases. As some discard all this as hysteria and Islamist war propaganda, the dollar hegemony is rapidly melting away under the world island's rising sun. 2024 will be a remarkable 'election year'. W.D. Gann projected 'major panic, breadlines, soup kitchens, despair, and unemployment' into the US of 2024. And US astrologer L. David Linsky sees the home-front ready for more mayhem, upheaval, war and regime change. Plenty of opportunities along the lines and times in the above seasonal roadmap for 2024.

 

 

The Kitchin Cycle and the Benner Cycle are bullish for all of 2024 and 2025 (historically the fifth year outperforming all other years in the decennial pattern). In the current decennial cycle Larry Williams identified June 2024 as "the sweet spot with 90% accuracy" to buy stocks until December 2025.

 

 

 

 

 

In January 2024 the Sensitive Degrees of the Sun are:

Jan 02 (Tue) = Earth at perihelion = positive = high
Jan 06 (Sat) = negative = low
Jan 19 (Fri) = negative = low
Jan 30 (Tue) = positive = high

The Turning points in the Geocentric Bradley Barometer are (+/-1 CD):

Jan 04 (Thu) = Low
Jan 13 (Sat) = High
Jan 22 (Mon) = Low
Jan 29 (Mon) = High

The SoLunar Rhythm during January 2024: 

 

Additional References:
Seth Golden (Dec 26, 2023) @ X

Dimensional (2023) - Market Returns During Election Years.

IsabelNet (Dec 12, 2023) - S&P 500 Day of Month Seasonality Returns 1928 to present.

 

 Last time the S&P 500 was up 9 consecutive weeks was in 2004 and before that two 9-week win streaks in 1989 and in 1994,

before that a 12-week win streak in 1985. The next years' returns were:
1986 = 14%
1990 = -4.5%
1995 = 34%

2005 = 3%

 

 

2024 in W.D. Gann's Financial Time Table

2024

» Major Panic - CRASH! «

» 4-years of falling prices, business stagnated, breadlines, soup kitchens, despair, and unemployment. «

Quoted from:
TPR (2012) - W.D. Gann's Financial Time Table 1784 - 2121 | Extended and Adjusted.

S&P 500 │ 2023 Still An Inside Year

 S&P500 (weekly candles)

The 2023 yearly target remains above the January 2022 high at 4,817. Price currently above Level 2 and above the July 2023 third quarter's high. 2023 is still an Inside Year, inside of the 2022 price range. The 2023 fourth quarter is an Outside Quarter. Eight trading days left before the year closes for another 120 to 140 points up into the Level 3 price target at 4,857 or even 5,000. From there a retracement down to around 4,587 - 4,440. The seasonal chart points to the 2023 high around Dec 26 (Tue). See also: The Yearly Market Maker Breakout Template.

 

S&P500 (4 hour bars)

Week Dec 18-25 sideways-to-up; Year-End-Rally;  early January 2024 high around 5,050. 

 

2016 - Presidential Cycle - Seasonal Cycle - Decennial Cycle of DJIA

Since 1834 the U.S.-stock market has been positive 10 (56%) out of 18 times in the 6th year of every decade, and the average annual gain of a 6th year was 3.74%. Since the 1970s the DJIA gained 16% to 26% during the 6th year of each decade. On average the DJIA's 6th year in the Decennial Cycle, the Annual or Seasonal Cycle and the Presidential Cycle are all positive. In the average Decennial Cycle the DJIA scores the Low of the 6th Year in late January, rises into mid July, drops into September, before surging for the rest of the year. The Presidential Cycle drops from an early January High to a late February Low, rises into early April, drops to late May, rises again into early September, drops to early October before rising into the year-end.

Credits: Seasonal Charts

Credits: www.realinvestmentadvice.com

SPX vs Annual Cycle + 5th Year of Decennial Cycle

Calculated and charted with Timing Solution

Crude Oil's 10-Year Leading Indication for DJIA | Tom McClellan

Tom McClellan - Chart In Focus (December 11, 2014)

Tom McClellan recently presented a 10-year leading indication relationship between oil prices and the stock market, as shown in the above chart. The current oil price slide says that sometime around 2024 some type of “echo” in stock prices from this year’s oil price drop can be expected. 

Stock prices echoing oil price movements with a 10-year lag has “worked” for over 100 years and there is enough evidence to accept it, even if we cannot explain it. For now, the message of this leading indication is that the oil price rally from 1998 to 2008 has yet to see the full extent of its echo during the 2009-2018 period. While the current dip in oil prices is going to be bad for stock prices about 10 years from now, it is not really a problem for stock prices in real time. 

The following chart zooms into this correlation between the S&P500 and the Crude Oil Price shifted 10 years into the future and suggests the S&P500 would continue moving down next week, then up into end of December before forming a major low around January 6. Another rally into early July - with a correction from around March 20 to April 24 - should follow.

2015 - Presidential Cycle - Seasonal Cycle - Decennial Cycle of DJIA

HERE & HERE

Lance Roberts @ www.streettalklive.com

TheChartStore.com

Since 1834 the U.S.-stock market has been positive 12 out of 18 times in the 4th year of every decade and the 5th year was by far the best year of the Decennial Pattern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average started in 1895 and since then 11 of the last 12 5th years were up and averaged a return of almost 22%. The exception from the pattern was 2005 when the DJIA lost 0.61%.

U.S. Stocks in 5th strongest and 6th longest Bull Cycle since 1900

The bull market since March 2009 is the 22nd bull cycle since 1900. End of December 2013 it was in its 57th month. This is about the length of the current sunspot cycle 24. The ongoing bull market is now also the 6th longest bull cycle and with a performance of 154% (closing December 31st) the 5th strongest since 1900. 

Presidential Cycle - Seasonal Cycle - Decennial Cycle of DJIA (2013 - 2016)

 

HERE

Decennial Pattern for 2013

Larry R. Williams: The Right Stock at the Right Time, p. 11

In his book Tides and the Affairs of Men (1939), Edgar Lawrence Smith presented the idea of a ten-year stock market cycle. Smith's theory resulted from combining two other theories, Wesley Mitchell's 40-month cycle theory and the theory of seasonality. Combining these two periods, Smith theorized that there must be a ten-year, or 120-month, cycle. 

This would result from ten 12-month, annual cycles and three 40-month cycles coinciding every 10 years. When Smith investigated prices more closely, he found that indeed there appeared to be a price pattern in the stock market that had similar characteristics every ten years. This pattern has since been called the decennial pattern.

Smith used the final digit of each year's date to identify the year in his calculations. He termed the years 1881, 1891, 1901, etc., as the first years; 1882, 1892, etc. are the second; and so forth. 

"The 10-year cycle continues to repeat over and over, but the greatest advances and declines occur at the end of the 20-year and 30-year cycles, and again at the end of the 50-year and 60-year cycles, which are stronger than the others." 

W.D. Gann (1954): Master Stock Market Course, p. 224