Investment Newsletter: Stock Market & Investment Strategies
HELPING YOU NAVIGATE A TOUGH INVESTMENT ENVIRONMENT
DECISION MOOSE-- Global Investment Markets This Week
SELLING INTO 2026
Market Thumbnail: WEEK through 1/2/26:
As 2026 opens, US equities are down on the week after investors took profits in the last two trading days of December, not uncommon when equities are richly valued and the objective is to push capital gains obligations forward into the new year. US large caps fell 1.0% and small-caps gave back 1.1%. Offshore equities advanced with emerging markets Latin America (+1.0%) and Asia Pacific ex-Japan (+3.0%) leading developed markets Europe (+0.6%) and Japan (+0.4%) higher. Not unexpectedly, overbought gold (-4.4%) gave back all of last week’s gain in the face of Dollar (+0.5%) strength. On the defensive side, long-duration US Treasuries (-1.9%) broke below 200-day support as both long and short yields rose. Commodities (-1.4%) fell again, while oil prices (+0.7%) rose again. No model changes.
THE FREE GLOBAL INDEX MODEL-- SUMMARY 1/2/26
Gold On Hold
THIS WEEK: Holding #1 Gold (GLD) since 8/28/25 @313.07 via buy-stop after switching out of #2 EFA.
The Index Model has had a record run in 2025, a once in a lifetime event posting a record annual year-to-date gain about a month ago, most of it from gold. Severely overbought, gold corrected about 11% on hawkish Fed-speak in November, never triggering a stop-loss. US small caps (IWM) recently overtook gold in the primary momentum metric (CI%), but Gold continues to lead in technical strength, PMO, and quarterly performance. The Fed rate cut propelled gold 3.3% higher in 2 weeks.
PERFORMANCE since 1/1/25:
INDEX MOOSE +59%
AOA (Aggressive Growth) +18%
SPY BENCHMARK +14%
AOM (Moderate Growth) +10%
2025: Strong gold and weak US stocks put the Index model into gold from January through April helping us to avoid the March-April V-bottom in equities caused by the tariff announcement. Exiting gold, which had flattened by mid-May, for International stocks set up a period of vacillation between gold and international stocks that ended with a switch to gold in late August, ahead of the first Fed rate cut on 9/18. With rate cuts and trillions in US federal deficit spending gold and hard assets should have solid future prospects.
THE FREE GLOBAL INDEX MODEL has been around for 34-years in one iteration or another. It is a momentum-based market timing model the latest version of which compares the relative strength of ETFs representing US stocks (SPY, IWM) and international stocks (EFA, EEM)) along with US Treasuries (SHY, EDV) and Gold (GLD) in order to pick the single best asset class in which to invest your money. Rankings provide the basis for the Moosecalls global financial newsletter, and have in the past been a solid predictive tool. They provide a general direction (stocks, bonds, precious metals, cash) for allocating investment assets. A daily signal, it is provided here for free once a week as a guideline only.