What’s a Federal Reserve Board interest rate cut worth to the stock market? We’ll soon find out, but history suggest it’s quite valuable to investors when the Fed reduces rates during an expansionary period rather than ahead of or during a recession. As you’ll see below, such a move will boost U.S. cyclical, growth and large cap stocks, among other asset classes.

As the second quarter earnings reporting season gets underway, I’ve heard a growing chorus of strategists and investors call for a pullback in equities. Such bearishness is perhaps no surprise given the S&P 500 index is already up ~20% YTD, and given an earnings recession is underway, the third one since 2009. (For more on this see page 1.)

Two weeks from now, the U.S. central bank is likely to make its first interest rate cut in almost 5 years and, as I’ve pointed out previously, such a move has dramatic impacts on markets. Moreover, given the paucity of investor conviction, one could argue there is a lot of cash on the sidelines, especially considering the substantial retail outflows from equity mutual funds in 2019 YTD.

Equities are likely to see a strong boost from a cut. Since 1971, when the Fed makes its first cut and Leading Economic Indicators (LEIs) are still positive (as is the case cu...

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