Is the U.S. Stock market headed for a crash as many media pundits have been calling?

Will China’s economic growth continue to support Chinese stock market valuations?

Where will the Philippine stock market land given its position among these two giants?

At this event, Professor Joel Litman provides the latest Market Phase Cycle™ signals from Valens Research with forecasts for the future of these three investment markets. He will be updating the research he presented at an APEC program last November 2015 (At the time, Valens Research signals pointed to a steady and rising US stock market and a fall in Chinese stock prices.)

Students of the markets know that past performance is not indicative of future success. Successful portfolio managers, investment advisers, and strategists don’t put funds in securities that performed phenomenally and consistently 10 years ago in the hopes that such outperformance will be replicated in current conditions.

But fewer people know that “This time it’s different” is as dangerous a mindset as thinking that the past predicts the future. “This time it’s different” assumes that first and foremost, everyone learns from the mistakes of the past and collectively and actively plans steps not to commit those. That’s not realistic… and a quick history lesson will show that history does tend to repeat itself one way or another.

It doesn’t matter what year it is. It doesn’t matter what country it is. Markets have patterns that are driven consistently by certain patterns of profit levels, growth, credit and financing, and market sentiment. By tracking these signals, one can track the current market cycle stage with uncanny insights.

In this upcoming program, Professor Litman focuses on several unique aggregate signals that have been shown to drive market valuations and investment cycles over the last 150 years:

• The importance of equity analysis in the context of credit markets
• The need to “clean-up” GAAP and IFRS accounting distortions to see economic reality
• A focus on the main drivers of free cash flows, and not simply the cash flows themselves
• The relationship of monetary policy and government intervention on stock markets
• Investor and management sentiment for understanding shorter term market swings

This program provides a summary market outlook for the U.S. corporate credit and equity markets based on deep, fundamental research of examining market scenarios and some of the most advanced fundamental indicators of market valuations and trends.

After attending this seminar, investors can generate a better understanding of company-specific equity, credit, and derivative risks and opportunities. In aggregate, a better understanding of credit risk leads to a far better predictive model of market cycles.