I used to do quite a lot of work on timing the market. This landed me a gig at a hedge fund where for one year at least, percentage return was among the top in the world (triple digits running over 100M). Alas due to a host of other issues the fund closed and I have moved on to something else. Some of my methods are rather eclectic to say the least, and despite performing a truly top tier level another door hasn't opened so to speak.

Real accuracy takes a lot of research and monitoring and I just don't have the time for this full project these days. However I do take a stab stronger timing dates for turns in each Total market view, and some of these have been remarkably correct. Here's a pretty nifty month from August 2017 when 6 of 7 dates listed were key turns, including the low and high for the month and the second low and second high. Oh yeah all timing dates posted at the end of the month prior - and no fudging.

Sometimes my timing work is in the background of a call without specifically mentioning it - for example, this post calling for a bond bounce on 5/20 (1 day off the low of year for TLT and the one first post on bonds all year) mentioned timing in an offhand way with technicals emphasized. But maybe it is the timing that is calling my attention enough to the technicals to write about them. :)

Very occasionally I have taken to twitter on these and that is what I am going to review in this post, my timestamped timing calls.

9/1/17
Oil via USO and CL1 (cont contract) doesn't have much going for it technically except recovery of slightly rising daily 50 moving avg
And a maybe higher low compared to June lows. Timing cycles, for the record, point to upside surprise from here through as late as 10/22

Rating - 7 (out of 10).
Oil did start jumping from relative low levels. The only thing off here was that the rally was far from over, and you could say out-performance continued into early November. I might have revisited that in a Total market view, but I didn't tweet into the thread.

10/21/2017
Next specific timing call: Rates via $TYX and $TNX more potential to breakout up, ie $TLT breakdown, 10/19-11/14.

Rating - 3.5.
Initially this looked on track with a new multi-month low on 10/26, but after that TLT bounced back to a multi-week high by 11/7. But jeez this was spot on for LQD and HYG, with LQD dropping down after a 10/13 high to a multi-month low right on schedule on 11/10; and HYG playing along with a 10/23 high and very sharp drop into 11/14-15 lows. Right idea bout rates moving, just wrong vehicles. This is what I mean by what it takes for real accuracy - sometimes I can get a theme right but in this game that isn't enough - you have to have the right vehicle.

1/24/2018
Special timing post: volatility cycles picking up 1/25-2/2 maybe through 2/15. This does not mean i am saying stocks down from here. There are a lot of YR1s to watch though. Yup back in UVXY already.

2/6/2018
Since vol extended past 2/2, think instability in general through 2/15, & 2/9 looking like key date. With YPs along with D200MAs testing and holding on both ES and YM near term move most likely furious bounce that then fails and sets up lower or divergence lows into 2/9.

Rating - 11
Honestly - does it get any better than these two? Nailed the volatility spike and then what stands as price low of the year in most major indexes. Hello hedge funds? I have made this sort of call many times. Just based on these two alone one would think some funds might be watching or at least interested in my methods, but if they are I haven't heard about it.

5/14/2018
Special timing post: whatever move begins 5/15-16 could dominate markets through mid-June at least and possibly later. Prefer stocks to fade and begin multi week decline, but this timing cycle historically does more damage in existing downtrends.

Rating - 6.5
This wasn't too bad actually. The historical pattern repeated and I should have just kept to that. instead of thinking stock drop. Several risk assets in existing downtrends on 5/14 actually did go quite lower into mid-June:

BTCUSD 5/13/18 close 8683, 6/12 low 6436, -26%
EWZ 5/11/18 close 40.94, 6/7 low 31.28, -24%
SHComp 5/11 close 3163, 6/18 low 2871, -9%
These three were below D200MA, and in case of BTC and SCHomp, already below YP as well.

EEM 5/11 close 47.40, 6/19 low 43.41, -8% (still above D200 but below D100 and a sharply falling D50)

Didn't start as severe a downtrend but still lower highs and moved below Q2Ps
FXI 5/11 close 48.16, 6/19 low 45.78, -5%
EWG 33.15 to 30.51, -8%
There are several others like this with garden variety -5% pullbacks.

And let's not forget TLT low of year on 5/17/2018! So that counts as "change of character" that I mentioned in a Total market view for this 5/15-16 area.

So what is next? Momentum trades, so that means small caps and FAANG most of all, should take a hit or go sideways at most starting 6/26 for the next few weeks at least and possibly through 8/10. Additionally, in this timing window there is also some chance of a wildcard haywire event that could be quite severe like summer 2011. And these are going on Twitter too.