USA Leading The World In Surprises (Both Good And Bad)

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Leading the world

Most of the ways the U.S. has been surprising the world have not necessarily been the good kind. When it comes to economic reports, though, the U.S. had far surpassed other regions, to one of the most extreme extents ever.

That has started to reverse, which has been a bad sign for the dollar.

It led to mostly positive returns for the S&P 500, with October 2008 standing out as the main (and virtually only) exception.

Dow Index Death Cross

And lastly, the Dow Jones Transportation Average has made a "death cross" whereby its 50 dma fell below its 200 dma.

When this happened in the past, the Dow Jones Transportation Average's forward returns weren't necessarily bearish, but were certainly worse than random (see "Risk" and "Z-score"). This is standard for traditional price-only trend following strategies: they don't significantly beat buy and hold in the long run, but they do help traders avoid the worst bear markets.