Valuation and fundamentals

Check tag for prior versions. Despite the decline in price, the forward 12 month P/E went up last week, according to data from the WSJ

Last week SPX was at 17.59x forward earnings, and this week it is 17.62. So potential support at 17x 1974 and resistance continues to drop at 2090 (it was 2105 last week for the same multiple). 

I won't go through the other indexes but similar idea. 

The fastest (and best) fundamental analysis I know of is the Citigroup Economic Surprise Index which measures relative beats or misses to what is expected. This works so well because what is expected is already priced in. So positive reports don't matter so much if they are on schedule.

For some reason the best place to view this report is via Dr Ed Yardeni. I've been talking about the importance of the zero line since including this topic on this blog. Whatever good news was reported last week it didn't change the look of this index. My view remains - it will be unlikely to make convincing new highs in the major indexes without seeing positive surprises in the data, ie, this index going positive (which is hasn't since early 2015).