20100630 Timer Commentary

The graph of the market timing systems on the home page has been updated.

The Mountaineer model continues to get hammered this year. It compares to the worst six-month’s backtested performance of the Climber – back in 2002. It should be noted, every time we make a change to the logic of the timing models, we never attempt to correct some immediate performance issue, but rather improve the entire overall performance.

The changes made with the 20100611 build have been helpful to the recent performance of the Climber and the Orienteer, but have not helped (nor made worse) the recent performance of the Mountaineer.

We periodically review the 2002 period of performance for the Climber, and will add this new span of performance for the Mountaineer (when it has completed its course) to see what can be done to avoid such downturns.

A little over three weeks ago, we suggested you could expect some violent swings and wild behavior is exactly what we have had since then. Almost one year ago, we provided our personal view that a double-dip recession was in the works. We thought it would become manifest in October but it’s amazing what trillions of dollars of stimulus will do in an economy. From those we listen to and admire, I think our view of a double-dip is still in the minority, but we are getting more company.