INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

After surviving what has historically been the toughest month for stock returns, the calendar now turns in investors’ favor, with the fourth quarter typically exhibiting the strongest returns as buyers tend to chase returns into year-end.

With all major indexes entering the home stretch on solid footing, our Momentum Dial stays in a Positive position.

While rate cuts should help equity markets in the short-term, the Fed is more concerned with stimulating the labor market, which appears poised to add fewer than 100,000 jobs for the fifth consecutive month, the weakest period of job growth since the Great Financial Crisis.

With continued weakness in key economic indicators, our Fundamental Dial remains in a Negative position.

Oracle became in the latest darling in the AI space, with the stock adding $230 billion in market cap after citing huge demand for AI workloads in their quarterly earnings report. However, at debt-to-equity levels more than twice that of their competitors, this surge raises another potential red flag for unsustainable valuations in the tech space. As such, our Valuation Dial remains Negative.

On balance, our composite positioning remains somewhat defensive, with one dial in a Positive position but two dials remaining Negative.