From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza 

Welcome to our latest RPP Report, where we publish return tables for various asset classes and categories, along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

We consider this our weekly state of the union address, as we break down and reiterate both our tactical and structural outlook on various asset classes and discuss the most important themes and developments currently playing out in markets all around the world.

In our RPP Report from the end of August, we discussed how the weakest areas were registering failed breakdowns and digging in at support.

In our most recent report, we focused on how the strongest areas were making fresh record highs. Things were looking up for the bulls… but that changed once again.

We’ve talked about how it’s been a back and forth battle with neither buyers nor sellers making any material progress for months now. And that’s exactly what we’re continuing to see, as bears have regained control again, pushing the major indexes lower for five straight sessions coming into this week.

For this reason, we thought a mid-week edition of the RPP would be appropriate to give us time to see what kind of follow-through would occur following the recent selloff.

In this week’s report, we’re going to talk about this near-term weakness but also some positive developments, like the healthy expansion in participation for ex-US equities in recent weeks and months.

I’m working with a broken hand these days, so we’re also going to try and let the charts do most of the talking. Don’t worry, there are plenty out there that have something to say. Let’s look at some now.

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