DC Lite #324

1. Market pricing vs. GDP growth. "Despite the sell-off, markets still appear to be pricing in relatively strong US growth this year, according to our simple regression model of US GDP growth on annual US cyclicals vs defensives returns, equal weighted S&P 500 returns and US credit spreads (all 3-month lagged)."

2. Investor Intelligence. "Sentiment remains depressed: Investors Intelligence Bulls is now at 28.3% This is the 2nd week in a row Bulls have been below 30%."

3. Double-digit down years. "Can stocks fall 10% this year? Maybe, but history would say something bad needs to happen. Only 12 out of the past 97 years did stocks lose 10% or more for the year (total return) and all had some major reasons for the trouble."

4. SPX price targets. "The green circle is the highest estimate (7,100) for the S&P 500's close this year in Bloomberg's latest strategist survey. The red circle is the lowest (5,500)."

5. SPX vs. price targets. "In every year since 2016, the S&P has finished either above the highest forecast, or below the lowest."

ICYMI

• Tue 3/18 #323: "The Magnificent 7 are finally acting as a group — besides Apple, they’re all tumbling together"

• Mon 3/17 #322: "So far, industry analysts haven't gotten either the tariff memo or the recession memo"

• Fri 3/14 #321: "The big news in the UMich data was not inflation expectations"

• Thu 3/13 #320: "Investors say they are pessimistic but are still invested aggressively"