I have been reminded that it is about time I updated our Coppock indicators – it has been a few months since the last update after all. Have I been slack? Not at all. I have been keeping a close eye on the Coppock numbers, running the spreadsheet each month, and the problem I have had is that the system has simply not told us much for a long time. ‘Nothing happened’ is hardly food for investment thought – and the “opportunity of a lifetime” has not, as one reader worried, been missed.
Yet the fact that nothing appears to be happening could perhaps be interesting in itself. The context is that the vast majority of equity markets we cover have been in Coppock buy territory for some time (with fixed income flagging the opposite), in many instances since the first half of 2016. The broader context is that this bull run is itself part of a much longer bull market – technically described as one that has not experienced a 20 per cent fall – which in the case of the S&P 500 stretches back eight years.
What the dearth of Coppock activity could suggest is that we are in the bull market’s halcyon days, and readings have been rising sharply of late. But digging deep into the Coppock past reveals that we are not yet at the heights of ebullience reached in the run-up to the dot-com crash, which came at the end of the longest bull market on record, stretching a full decade. I suspect, though, that as we approach that record in the months ahead Coppock will once again get more interesting.
| North America | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | Latest signal | Latest signal (date) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 Composite | 13.5 | 16.8 | 20.1 | 23.8 | 27.1 | BUY | May-16 |
| Dow Jones Industrial Average | 16.2 | 20.1 | 24.2 | 28.5 | 32.6 | BUY | May-16 |
| Nasdaq 100 | 14.2 | 17.9 | 21.9 | 28.2 | 34.5 | CANCEL SELL | Jul-16 |
| Nasdaq Composite | 12.3 | 16.9 | 21.5 | 28.2 | 34.4 | BUY | Jul-16 |
| S&P/TSX | 13.5 | 18.9 | 22.9 | 26.2 | 28.6 | BUY | Apr-16 |
| Asia Pacific, Africa | |||||||
| Bangkok SET | 15.0 | 20.1 | 23.8 | 26.8 | 28.0 | BUY | Apr-16 |
| FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI | -3.9 | -2.6 | -1.9 | 0.3 | 3.4 | BUY | Feb-16 |
| FTSE China Shanghai Composite | -21.1 | -13.9 | -9.4 | -0.6 | 6.3 | BUY | Oct-16 |
| Hang Seng | -4.2 | 3.7 | 9.2 | 16.3 | 23.9 | BUY | Jul-16 |
| Korea SE Composite | 0.9 | 3.3 | 5.3 | 8.8 | 12.7 | BUY | Jul-16 |
| Indonesia Jakarta Composite | 25.9 | 28.6 | 30.2 | 32.3 | 33.9 | BUY | Mar-16 |
| Singapore Straits Times | -9.8 | -2.8 | 2.3 | 9.5 | 15.4 | BUY | Jun-16 |
| Taiwan SE Weighted | 11.3 | 15.6 | 19.6 | 24.5 | 27.3 | BUY | May-16 |
| Japan Topix | -19.3 | -12.5 | -6.4 | -0.1 | 7.3 | BUY | Oct-16 |
| Australia ASX 200 | 4.5 | 9.2 | 12.5 | 16.6 | 20.4 | BUY | Jul-16 |
| New ZealandNZ 50 | 29.6 | 27.7 | 24.5 | 21.4 | 19.0 | SELL | Oct-16 |
| South Africa JSE TOP 40 | -4.3 | -3.1 | -4.2 | -3.7 | -2.1 | BUY* | Mar-17 |
| India Sensex | 4.3 | 9.2 | 12.7 | 17.5 | 22.9 | BUY | May-16 |
| South America | |||||||
| Mexico IPC (Bolsa) | 11.7 | 12.6 | 12.6 | 13.6 | 15.1 | CANCEL SELL* | Jan-17 |
| Brazil Bovespa | 51.0 | 62.1 | 70.0 | 75.4 | 80.3 | BUY | Mar-16 |
| MSCI EM Latin America US% | 28.3 | 39.1 | 46.5 | 52.6 | 58.4 | BUY | Jan-16 |
| Europe/UK | |||||||
| Netherlands AEX | -0.3 | 3.1 | 8.2 | 14.7 | 20.5 | BUY | Oct-16 |
| Greece Athex Composite | -25.0 | -15.9 | -8.1 | 1.9 | 13.2 | BUY | Jul-16 |
| ATX Austrian Traded | 2.8 | 9.4 | 16.0 | 24.6 | 35.7 | SELL | Jan-16 |
| Belgium Bel 20 | -3.7 | -2.7 | -1.1 | 3.4 | 8.1 | BUY | Oct-16 |
| Germany Dax 30 | -0.6 | 5.0 | 10.9 | 19.3 | 27.2 | BUY | Oct-16 |
| Euro Stoxx 50 | -17.0 | -12.7 | -7.0 | 1.2 | 9.5 | BUY | Oct-16 |
| France Cac 40 | -9.3 | -5.9 | -1.0 | 6.1 | 13.5 | BUY | Oct-16 |
| FTSE 100 | 12.9 | 17.2 | 21.8 | 26.1 | 28.7 | BUY | May-16 |
| FTSE 250 | 3.9 | 6.2 | 9.2 | 13.4 | 17.8 | BUY | Aug-16 |
| FTSE All Share | 11.3 | 15.4 | 19.7 | 23.9 | 27.0 | BUY | Jun-16 |
| Swiss Market Index | -18.1 | -35.7 | -29.7 | -19.2 | -7.8 | BUY | Nov-16 |
| Ibex 35 | -26.5 | -20.7 | -13.8 | -3.3 | 7.8 | BUY | Oct-16 |
| Ireland SE General (ISEQ) | 2.3 | 0.9 | 1.4 | 4.2 | 7.1 | CANCEL SELL* | Feb-17 |
| OMX Stockholm 30 | -8.9 | -3.7 | 2.9 | 10.2 | 17.1 | SELL | Jun-15 |
| Oslo Exchange All share | 15.8 | 21.6 | 26.5 | 30.5 | 33.5 | BUY | Jul-16 |
| Portugal PSI 20 | -28.0 | -26.9 | -25.4 | -20.7 | -14.8 | BUY | Dec-16 |
| Russia MICEX Index | 38.6 | 40.6 | 38.3 | 34.2 | 30.8 | SELL* | Feb-17 |
| Swiss Market Index | -18.1 | -15.0 | -10.6 | -5.7 | -0.1 | BUY | Nov-16 |
| Fixed Income | |||||||
| Barclays US Aggregate Bond | 0.9 | -0.4 | -1.4 | -2.7 | -3.8 | SELL | Nov-16 |
| US 10y Treasury | 4.5 | 2.2 | 0.4 | -1.8 | -3.7 | SELL | Nov-16 |
| UK 10y Treasury | 15.9 | 14.2 | 14.0 | 13.2 | 11.9 | SELL | Nov-16 |
| Japan 10y Treasury | 8.7 | 7.3 | 6.0 | 4.5 | 3.1 | SELL | Oct-16 |
| Germany 10y Treasury | 11.1 | 9.2 | 8.7 | 7.2 | 5.2 | SELL | Nov-16 |
| FT All Govt | 13.7 | 12.4 | 12.0 | 11.2 | 10.1 | SELL | Nov-16 |
| IBOXX Liquid £ Corp Long-dated | 17.7 | 18.6 | 19.6 | 20.0 | 20.6 | BUY | May-16 |
| FTSE British Govt index linked all mats | 34.9 | 36.9 | 39.2 | 40.4 | 41.7 | CANCEL SELL | Jun-16 |
| Commodities (S&P Goldman Sachs Total Return indices) | |||||||
| Agriculture | -9.7 | -7.7 | -6.5 | -8.1 | -9.9 | CANCEL BUY* | Mar-17 |
| Industrial Metals | 8.7 | 20.0 | 29.4 | 35.7 | 40.0 | BUY | Feb-16 |
| Livestock | -33.5 | -30.1 | -26.9 | -22.7 | -16.6 | BUY | Nov-16 |
| Precious Metals | 21.9 | 20.6 | 20.5 | 18.0 | 15.0 | SELL | Nov-16 |
| Gold Bullion | 22.3 | 20.8 | 20.5 | 17.9 | 15.1 | SELL | Nov-16 |
| Crude Oil | -47.0 | -33.0 | -19.7 | -11.5 | -5.4 | BUY | Feb-16 |
