Bob; Over all I have made no bones about the market having become similar to a ponzi scam. It's just a big one and anything big gets respect even if it's crooked.
NO ONE can call the longer term market , at best it's a guess. When I talk interest rates I'm talking relative motion..not fixed points..I think relative motion..and on the shorter term ( and we have to work hard to see that ) Bonds and Stocks generally stay coupled ..rates go up , stocks fall, rates go down stocks go up BUT if you have been looking close you have seen they don't always do that, it's when I see the rates falling and the stocks falling at the same time , particularly if the rates fall fast, I know the stocks will put in a bottom. This is rather short term. Like wise if I see rates climbing and stocks also climbing I know that won't last long , one or the other has to give.
Me, you , or no one else can tell what next year will bring for certain. Some things can give you an overall idea, but timing when they will happen is dam near impossible. Heck the FED goes over more data than you or I have time to look at and they can't call it. They just pretend to, but if you think they make changes because they see inflation, that's crap. They are always behind the curve. This big run up was not any credit to their foresight, it was the result of a mistake they made. Now they are frustrated.
The market won't see a recessions, before it comes, it will just react to it , and then panic and make it worse. Several things are helping us out right now, like you said the Airlines are up because fuel is down..but that's a small thing. Fuel is priced into every thing we use, cheap fuel is like a big tax break, and even helps them to poor to pay taxes. The low interest rates are helping start ups.
AND the DOLLAR IS NOT ALL THAT HIGH..stop buying into the CNBC BULLCRAP...chart the dollar against the Pound the EU and the FRANK, crap on this HIGH DOLLAR CRAP...the YEN is down..most ASIA currency is DOWN..but they are not just down against the DOLLAR. The pipe dreams that we were ever going to sell them much of any thing was just that pipe dreams. Maybe some corn or such, and maybe a few phones ( at the start ) but somebody does not understand the Asians, they want to sell not buy imports, and would not let it happen anyway except for what they absolutely must have, until they can make it for themselves.
This high dollar crapola is just the excuse the big corporations want to use to cover up the fact they hyped their earnings using every trick they could think of. So what if they say they could sell more with a cheap dollar, just were is the profit in that..when the back wash is you have to pay more for EVERYTHING else.
The ones Bashing the dollar and saying it's too high , are the assholes that got caught short, between it and the yen, and the ones who want to pay off loans they made with cheaper dollars. The currency market is the most crooked and rigged market of them all, and if RUBEN dares to devalue the dollar he should be hauled out and shot. That crap has been pulled on the American people more than once, and as far as I'm concerned it was an atrocity when Nixon and Connely pulled it to enhance the war chest of their secret friends. --------------------- As far as the couple with interest rates, who knows when they will hit bottom, Jimmy Rogers ?? crap I got him on tape 5 months ago saying they would never drop below 6%. One don't always lead the other, it may be one , then the next.. but if you track the relative motion or rate of change then you at least see short term bottoms and maybe tops. Tops are a lot harder to call than bottoms, ( a day or two ago if you use today's close I missed it by 1.2 pts ) Yesterday exchange2000.com and I anticapated the spike down, today and was waiting for the buy signal. then today and note the time.. exchange2000.com How long this bounce will run is hard to say, I anticipate we will get back to 1120 , and if interest rates behave themself maybe go on to a new high. Resistance is at 1120 now. But that like anything else in this market can change. -------------- I also see this market as the great Titanic looking for it's ice berg, we may not hit one any time soon, could go a long time and not hit one, but it's just best to keep a look out posted. The sell off when it comes will be a surprise to 99.9% of the professionals..and the nature of surprises is that you don't see them coming. The PROS have some plans in place to get out, in the event of a panic sell off ( & before you or I can even place an order they will have made their exit. ) --------------- Generally the index funds have been the best place to be , out doing most 90% of the others , and 95% of the stock pickers, of the 20% of funds that beat or match the S&P half of them are index funds. If a big sell off comes they will suddenly become almost the worst place to be. These new 10/20/30 market triggers were not put in place for the little guy. Jim |