With apologies to OJ, Jerry and the others, Ted was the first to note that David's June Commentary was posted. I'm afraid my initial tongue-in-cheek remark may have been inappropriate or misinterpreted. It was intended to induce others to read this excellent commentary.
I'm a bit surprised at the seeming surprise David's cautionary market outlook seems to have generated. Regular readers of his monthly commentaries know that he has long voiced skepticism (I think well founded) ) about the durability of the bull market and valuations in general. If you also read Ed Studzinski's regular comments, he makes David look like a lotus eating optimist. (As most here know, Ed co-managed the Oakmark Equity and Income Fund for many years, turning out impressive results.)
I don't think MFO participants have been completely "in the dark" on the valuation issue or to the fact that stock markets can and sometimes do drop precipitously (25+% overnight) or flounder for incredibly long periods, as measured in years or decades. That's the risk you take for being in equities. If you read JohnChism's thread about "Bullish or Bearish" you'll find some of the same concerns David has recently raised - though certainly not as thoroughly explored or eloquently stated as only David can do.
To refresh readers' memories, I've clipped a few morsels from some of David's Commentaries dating back to November, 2013. Please read the commentaries in full, as they are easily retrievable on the MFO website. Apologies to David if, in pulling these out of context, I altered the meaning, omitted pertinent context, or changed the emphasis of any. There was no intent to do so.
Regards
-
November 1, 2013: "... a market that tacks on 29% in a year makes it easy to think of investing as fun and funny again. Now if only that popular sentiment could be reconciled with the fact that a bunch of very disciplined, very successful managers are quietly selling down their stocks and building their cash reserves again."
December 1, 2013: "Small investors and great institutions alike are partaking in one of the market’s perennial ceremonies: placing your investments atop an ever-taller pile of dried kindling and split logs. All of the folks who hated stocks when they were cheap are desperate to buy them now that they’re expensive...We have one word for you: Don’t."
January 1, 2014: If you’re looking for a shortcut to finding absolute value investors today, it’s a safe bet you’ll find them atop the “%age portfolio (invested in) cash” list ...They are, in short, the guys you’re now railing against"
February 1, 2014: "It makes you wonder how ready we are for the inevitable sharp correction that many are predicting and few are expecting."
March 1, 2014: "It’s not a question of whether it’s coming. It’s just a question of whether you’ve been preparing intelligently."
April 1, 2014: "Some (money managers) ... are calling the alarm; others stoically endure that leaden feeling in the pit of their stomachs that comes from knowing they’ve seen this show before and it never ends well."
June 1, 2014: ... all of this risk-chasing means that it’s Time to Worry About Stock Market Bubbles."
September 1, 2014: "Somewhere in the background, Putin threatens war, the market threatens a swoon, horrible diseases spread, politicians debate who among them is the most dysfunctional ..."
February 1, 2015: "The good folks at Leuthold foresee a market decline of 30%, likely some time in 2015 or 2016 and likely sooner rather than later. Professor Studzinski suspects that they’re starry-eyed optimists."
April 1, 2015: "(Sooner) ... Or later. That is, the stock market is going to crash. I don’t really know when. Okay, fine: I haven’t got an earthly clue. Then again, neither does anyone else."
May 1, 2015: "For investors too summer holds promise, for days away and for markets unhinged. Perhaps thinking a bit ahead while the hinges remain intact might be a prudent course ..."

Don't bear markets usually start either when the economy peaks and begins to tip into recession, or when interest rates rise either sharply or extensively? A 10% correction or so can happen any time, but a full-fledged bear market? I don't see it. And these hedge fund guys David cites haven't been great market-timers on average, many of them have been calling for hyperinflation for years now.
FWIW, Warren Buffett's equity allocation has been creeping higher: http://charlessizemore.com/warren-buffetts-asset-allocation/
And here's Jeffrey Saut, who I've found pretty good over the last 8-9 years, also calling for this bull to continue a while longer:
http://www.raymondjames.com/inv_strat.htm
That said, I do have more cash (about 10% vs my normal 5%) than I usually do, but obviously that's not much and I'll get hammered if the market indeed crashes.
And none of this detracts from my respect and gratitude for David! He may convince me yet.

Nice summary above and agree Jeff Saut has always seemed to have his act together. This is the sickest market I have seen in quite a while from all the divergences between the major averages to the new highs/lows index. It's almost too obvious and that is making this bear suspicious. Everyone sees the same thing and it's unusual to see so many wary with many of the markets still near historic highs. Even the Wall Street strategists are bearish per one of Ted links as evidenced by their lighter than normal allocation to stocks. They are normally a good contrarian indicator. Treasury bonds though do appear to be in a bear market. However, I never found cash to be a very prudent way to compound your wealth so as long as the bull continues (junk bonds have made historic highs the past few days per the H0A0) will continue to be 100% invested (with of course my usual tight mental stop) Right now in bondland RIMOX and OSTIX have my attention and may move some there.

Don't bear markets usually start either when the economy peaks and begins to tip into recession, or when interest rates rise either sharply or extensively? A 10% correction or so can happen any time, but a full-fledged bear market? I don't see it. And these hedge fund guys David cites haven't been great market-timers on average, many of them have been calling for hyperinflation for years now.
FWIW, Warren Buffett's equity allocation has been creeping higher: http://charlessizemore.com/warren-buffetts-asset-allocation/
And here's Jeffrey Saut, who I've found pretty good over the last 8-9 years, also calling for this bull to continue a while longer:
http://www.raymondjames.com/inv_strat.htm
That said, I do have more cash (about 10% vs my normal 5%) than I usually do, but obviously that's not much and I'll get hammered if the market indeed crashes.
And none of this detracts from my respect and gratitude for David! He may convince me yet.

Hi Old Joe,
In this instance, your Internet search engine did not serve you well. Perhaps you chose the wrong search words.
Instead of directing you towards a Link with real world information and possibilities, it guided you to a bizarre fictional cardboard character. That’s too bad because a town on Argentina’s Beagle Channel does incorporate an end of phrasing as part of its town motto.
That town is Ushuaia, the southern most town in the world. I had the advantage of not needing to research the matter since my wife and I visited the place a few years ago. Here is a Link to a site with general photos of Ushuaia and its dock area:
http://cruises.about.com/od/southamericacruises/ig/Ushuaia-Argentina/
Here is a Link to a site that features a photo of its harbor welcome sign that defiantly proclaims its motto:
http://www.followjohnpaul.com/ushuaia-end-world/
As you can see from the photo, the complete Ushuaia town motto is “Ushuaia End of the World Beginning of Everything”.
That’s great optimism for a town that survives and prospers under such harsh environmental conditions.
On our visit, the townspeople were terrific, maybe the police not so much so. The police were suspicious of what to us were tourist-like activities. That’s somewhat understandable since Ushuaia is the home of Argentina’s maximum security prison. When we questioned the locals, we were told that the police were often corrupt; they believed the military were more trustworthy.
The discussions on this thread have been mostly helpful and designed to transmit information diversity. That’s great. I didn’t want the exchange to end with the lowbrow, but popular, Homer Simpson TV character featured. I doubt if anyone believes that “the end is near”. If we do, we’re wasting time on any financial matters.
Best Wishes.

"Event-driven" tends to be code for "market neutral, we hope." In general the plan is to try to pick up a bunch of small gains from arbitrage, which you can pocket even when the market's falling. One example: if Company A is expected to buy Company B, in about 90% of the time A's stock will fall upon the announcement and B's will rise. So you short A and go long on B, hold the positions for a few days or weeks and close them out with a market-neutral gain of 3%. If the market falls while you're holding these positions, your bet is that your short position will fall more than your long position will, so you'll make a big gain on the short, a smaller loss on the long, and you'll still pocket 3%.
The BlackRock fund is tiny and sucky. They just brought in a new manager, Mark McKenna. McKenna's previous employer was Harvard Management Company, the guys who manage the endowment. HMC was having a house-cleaning after years of unacceptable returns. BlackRock hired McKenna to manage an event-driven hedge fund for them then switched him here to try to stanch the bleeding.
For what that's worth,
David

@Old_Joe If you're looking for some summertime beach reading, I heartily recommend an unauthorized biography published several years ago about Gina Rhinehart's life (it took me a year to get it; every reprint/edition immediately sold out). A grand romp! One of the world's wealthiest women, the saga of the Rhinehart's mining fortune, and family feuding after Daddy's death (who, in court papers relating to his will's contestation, referred to his daughter as "his little baby Hippo") is way beyond the Anna Nicole Smith story. Uniquely Aussie.

Hi Hank, Hi Guys,
Please do not interpret my posting of Jim Stack’s Las Vegas presentations as my ringing endorsement of his advice. It is not. I like his historical research and his reliance on multiple market directional indicators. I don’t necessarily agree with his conclusions. I don’t subscribe to his services,
I posted Stack’s recommendations on MFO for informational purposes. Stack is one of my favorite financial money managers because of his dependence on statistical research, but also because he is a recovering Aerospace engineer. In that regard, we share a common background that demands a heavy commitment to safety factors. That commitment is reflected in his conservative, defensive investment philosophy and strategies.
Stack has enjoyed success as a money manager, but he is a relatively small player in that field with a very limited audience. The chances that his clients would all follow his incremental equity reduction advice is small; the likelihood that a wider audience would act on that advice is remote with the probabilities approaching zero. The fear of a market meltdown as a self-fulfilling Jim Stack prophecy is just not in the cards.
Stack’s track record is a mixed bag. Since he adheres to a defensive policy, he tends to partially reduce equities early. I agree with many MFOers that Gurus are not especially prescient. Remember the CXO Advisory Group’s Guru Rating database. The overall success score was just below 50% with the highest value at the 68% level. That data reinforces my long standing observation that forecasters can’t consistently forecast.
Stack was not evaluated by CXO Advisory. Based on my general assessment of Stack’s methods, I speculate that he would have been slightly above middle of the road in that rating.
I agree that market timing is hazardous duty, especially in the short-term because of emotional investor noise, and amplified when synchronized into a herd reaction. An old cautionary saying about joining the crowd warns that “running with the herd might get you trampled”. That’s wise words,
But I do like to collect and compare Guru predictions. When properly assembled and used (I mentioned the success of a Kalman Filtering approach in earlier submittals), the herd opinions can improve the odds of success.
As an aside, it seems like many investment organizations are now using fund team managers instead of individual superstar managers. DFA and Dodge and Cox serve as excellent mutual fund examples.
Regrettably, nothing is ever perfectly simple in the investment process. Conflicting evidence must always be carefully collected and weighed. That’s one reason why information source diversity is so important. Independent analyses and interpretations are critical. I often wonder just how independent these analyses really are. There appears to be an incestuous relationship among many popular market writers and pundits.
When reading this post, please recognize that I do like Stack and rate him highly along with several other money matter advisors. But these other advisors often offer disparate market opinions. All “experts” are not equal; the value I extract from them is weighted.
The first step before making an investment decision is to gather information from several primary sources. A second step is to sort and evaluate these data without falling victim to data overload.
Avoiding “analysis paralysis” is an issue. I’m sure all MFOers approach this step differently. The decision making process is itself an art. I use a very, very informal form of the Kalman Filtering approach whereby I weight the various inputs with an estimate of their accuracy record. Ben Franklin used a check list and sequentially eliminated elements from each side. Whatever works for you is the best approach.
Thank you all for participating in this thread. I did not anticipate the interest when I reported the scribbling that I made at the MoneyShow conference.
Best Wishes.
Edit: Hank, I too am 81 years old and am still in the market. However my commitment and enthusiasm are both easily overshadowed by the fine folks participating in the MFO exchanges.

@bee: I would think the main reason we don't discuss UMBIX much, is the fact that David Williams, the long time manager retired in 2012 I believe. He quietly amassed one of the best records of beating the S + P on a fairly consistent basis for years. I sold it after he retired. I now have his successor's fund SMGIX, who has done a very respectible job with UMBIX and SMGIX. I expect they will eventually merge. It's not easy owning Columbia funds because of all the sales over the years between varying investment firms, msf did an excellent post on its history. For more detail, use the search button for UMBIX.
I also own its tech fund, CMTFX but I think the glory days of Columbia are behind them, although I like these two funds very much.

FYI: ( I will link repeat program, early tomorrow morning, when it becomes available for free.)
Regards,
Ted
Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,
With stocks and bonds more expensive than they have been in 90% of market history even institutional investors are feeling conflicted about where to invest. According to a recent survey of global Chief Investment Officers, they are reluctantly increasing their allocation to stocks in order to get higher returns, even though they are worried about a major market correction. This week, with the permission of State Street Global Advisors, the sponsor of the survey we are sharing the “Walking The Tightrope” survey report with you. It will be available on our website, over the weekend.
It is the beginning of a fund raising season on public television, so this week we are revisiting an interview with Paul McCulley, a Financial Thought Leader, noted
Fed watcher, economist and former short term bond trader.
The reason we chose to highlight McCulley’s interview again is because he makes a strong case for one side of a very important economic debate, the outcome of which will have a huge impact on the markets. McCulley is a proponent of the “secular stagnation” theory being argued by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. If they are right, that we are in a period of prolonged economic stagnation, then interest rates should remain near historic lows for several more years and both the stock and bond markets should benefit as a result. If they are wrong, both markets are grossly overvalued and due for a severe correction.
You might recall that for years McCulley was a Senior Partner at bond giant PIMCO. He was a founding member of its Investment Policy Committee, along with firm founder Bill Gross, and author of the influential monthly “Global Central Bank Focus”. During his time at PIMCO, he managed their huge short term trading desk, overseeing an estimated $400 billion dollars in assets.
McCulley retired from PIMCO in 2010 to write, think, speak and otherwise lead a more balanced life, which he did until last year when he was asked to return to his old firm, by his former boss and close friend, Bill Gross. Gross then unexpectedly left the firm a few months later, an experience McCulley will talk about in our exclusive EXTRA feature on our website.
McCulley is known for his understanding of economics, the capital markets and Fed policy. Long before the 2008/2009 financial crisis he identified the powerful and destructive rise of what he called the “Shadow Banking System”, the unregulated institutions fueling the housing and credit bubble. He also coined the phrase “Minsky Moment”, after economist Hyman Minsky’s theory that financial stability, as this country had during the Alan Greenspan era, ultimately leads to financial instability, as people and institutions take on more and more risk.
That is exactly what happened.
In this interview he makes some other startling predictions about Fed policy under Janet Yellen, Mario Draghi’s intentions and the global level of interest rates.
If WEALTHTRACK isn’t showing on your local station due to pledge, you can always watch it on our website, WealthTrack.com over the weekend. As I mentioned you will also find our exclusive online EXTRA interview McCulley about his decision to retire – twice – and how he’s achieved a work/life balance.
Have a great weekend and make the week ahead a profitable and productive one.
Best Regards,
Consuelo

FYI: Top-performing large-cap funds in the past 10 years have been driven by a combination of growth and value stocks. Since 2013, growth stocks have been the main performance engines.
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTk0OTUzMjQ=
Enlarged Graphic:
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=WEBlv0528_1K.jpg&docId=754574&xmpSource=&width=1000&height=1152&caption=&id=754548

Advice for Graduates: Buy Stocks
Posted on May 27, 2015 by David Ott Acropolis is a fee-only wealth management firm,
When I graduated from college 20 years ago, the world was a different place: only a few people had cell phones,the Internet wasn’t useful for anything, and nobody used email or instant messaging.
I should note that I didn’t have to walk to school uphill both ways – that was before my time.
A lot has happened since I graduated and started participating in financial markets:
The good news, though, is that stocks represent ownership interests in operating businesses and as long as the system is based on capitalism and we have the rule of law, stocks should earn more than bonds or cash.
But, who’s to say what the next 20 years will look like? Right now, non-US stocks look a lot cheaper than our markets, so it’s not hard to think that their returns will at least match ours or potentially be higher. That said, while US stocks will likely have lower returns over the next 10 years, no one can say much about the 10 years beyond that.
So, young grasshoppers, buy stocks and do it in a diversified, global way.
http://acrinv.com/advice-for-graduates-buy-stocks/

Hi Guys,
This morning, I’m in the process of tossing my notes from the 2015 Las Vegas MoneyShow. They have limited shelf life. During those visits, I always make a point to attend one of Jim Stack’s lectures. His talks always inform.
Stack is cautiously optimistic and expects positive equity returns in the near-term. However, my notes say that he is assuming a more defensive posture. His current equity allocation is in the 75% range; the remainder is in cash equivalents. Typically, Stack commits north of 90% to equity holdings.
He is currently getting mixed signals from his multi-dimensional market indicator array. I myself have little confidence in any single individual’s forecasting acumen. But, if the projections are made independently from each other, there is some merit to an assembly of the wisdom of crowd approach. Therefore, collecting predictions from a band of honest practitioners is not an entirely bad idea.
I thought you guys might be interested in the whys and wherefores of Stack’s predictions and modeling. Here is a Link to a recent MarketWatch article that is based on his work:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bull-market-is-closer-to-the-end-than-investors-think-2015-03-16
Be sure to click to page two which lists some of the reasons for Stack’s partial movement towards a more defensive asset allocation. Stack is never an all-in or all-out guy. He characteristically makes incremental changes as the signals turn either green or red.
As I mentioned, Stack uses a variety of market direction Indicators. Here is a Link to a recent USA Today article titled “6 Signs the Aging Bull is in Late Innings”:
http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/03/09/6-signs-the-aging-bull-is-in-late-innings/
Stack’s analyses are always data dense and intensive. The 6 signs presented in the article are only a small portion of those that he monitors. If you like that, he just might be your man. Like all market gurus, he has both good and bad years. His record is that the good years greatly outnumber the bad years.
If your interest is peaked you might also want to examine his Coppock Guide and his “Bellwether” indicator. He can swamp you with the scope of his many signal generators. I don’t know how or if he weights them. I also don’t know the super stocks that Stack incorporates into his Bellwether indicator. Lots to learn so good luck.
Best Regards.

FYI: (In case you missed the E-Mail)
Regards
Ted
Dear friends,
One of the most frequent requests from readers has been to provide timely notification of events that cannot wait until our normal monthly update. That seems reasonable. Our plan is to provide updates to you folks but only if the information is timely and compelling.
The imminent closure of Vulcan Value Partners (VVPLX) meets those criteria. In April, Vulcan announced the closure of VVPLX and all of their related strategies without advance notice. That’s an entirely prudent and shareholder-friendly decision, so we had no opportunity to warn you in advance of the closure. We reported in our May issue:
Vulcan Value Partners (VVPLX) has closed to new investors. The firm closed its Small Cap strategy, including its small cap fund, in November of 2013, and closed its All Cap Program in early 2014. Vulcan closed, without advance notice, its Large Cap Programs – which include Large Cap, Focus and Focus Plus in late April. All five of Vulcan Value Partners’ investment strategies are ranked in the top 1% of their respective peer groups since inception.
Presumably persons with an interest in the fund objected to the abrupt closure. Vulcan filed an amended statement with the SEC, announcing the fact that the fund would now be closed on June 1, 2015.
Effective as of the close of business on June 1, 2015, the Fund will close to new investors, except as described below. This change will affect new investors seeking to purchase shares of the Fund either directly or through third party intermediaries. Existing shareholders of the Fund may continue to purchase additional shares of the Fund.
Vulcan Value and its sibling Vulcan Value Partners Small Cap (VVPSX, closed) are both very good funds. Morningstar has awarded five stars to each fund. MFO’s rating system, which is considerably more sensitive to risk and rewards consistency, gives both of them our top honor, Great Owl funds, which means their risk-adjusted performance exceeds their peers’ in every applicable trailing period greater than 12 months. Since inception, VVPLX has outperformed its large-growth peer group by about 3% per year with substantially less risk.
Our original 2011 profile of VVPSX quoted manager C.T. Fitzpatrick’s self-assessment: “We buy 900-pound gorillas priced like 98-pound weaklings. We have a five-year time horizon. Usually, our investments are out of favor for short-term reasons but their long-term fundamentals are sound.” During Mr. Fitzpatrick’s 17 year tenure with Southeastern Asset Management and the Longleaf Funds, his team was ranked in top 5% of money managers over five, ten, and twenty year periods according to Callan and Associates. He runs a compact portfolio of about 40 names, a third of which are mid-cap stocks. While they do not always hold their investments for five years (price appreciation sometimes requires them to move on), their standard is straightforward: if they aren’t comfortable with the idea of holding a stake in a firm for five years, they won’t buy it.
Interested parties might want to (quickly) review the Vulcan Value Partners website for details.
A second fund closure is also imminent: effective June 1, 2015, the T. Rowe Price Health Sciences Fund (PRHSX) will be closed to new investors. The $14 billion fund has substantially outperformed its peers under manager Taymour R. Tamaddon, who joined in February 2013: $10,000 entrusted to him on the day he took over the fund has grown to $21,600 while the average health care manager would have grown the investment to $20,000. The problem, of course, is that Mr. Tamaddon follows Kris Jenner’s phenomenal run as manager. With Mr. Jenner’s departure, Morningstar ceased analyst coverage of the fund. Nonetheless, it has had two-plus very solid years under Mr. T. and sports Price’s trademarks: low expenses, risk consciousness and consistently solid performance. As with Vulcan, you might want to do a quick review of the fund’s webpage.
As ever,
David

The NASDAQ biotechnology index lost almost two-thirds of its value in the two years ended Sept. 30, 2002, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The index currently trades at a price-to-earnings multiple of 86 compared with 19 for the S&P 500.

VintageFreak, when I called Bruce Funds to inquire if the fund was available in Texas they said it was.

You can't be serious! I kept looking for years only to be told it wasn't for sale in TX. Why did no one tell me :-(
In any case, I'll only buy a minimum or wait...If I buy substantial amount, it will tank. I am an astrologer.

FYI: Talk of a bubble in biotechnology stocks is nothing new. It has been a topic of concern among investors and pundits for quite some time. This is not surprising considering that the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index has outpaced the S&P 500 by roughly 250% over the past six years. This year, in particular, has seen biotech stocks widen the outperformance gap to roughly 500%, evoking a new wave of bubble talk. Despite the onslaught of naysayers, shares of biotech stocks continue to climb higher and higher, showing no signs of stopping yet.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/biotech-bubble-is-nowhere-near-popping-2015-05-27/print
M* IBB Performance:
http://performance.morningstar.com/funds/etf/total-returns.action?t=IBB&region=USA&culture=en_US

None of this would bother me much but Gabelli Asset, managed by Gabelli, has underperformed in recent years AND perhaps the cause of underperformance has a VERY high expense ratio

FYI: (Just ask the late Liz Bramwell about Mario. He once locked her out of her office over a dispute.)
Mario J. Gabelli’s investment firm, Gamco Investors, is another shareholder warrior telling companies to create value through good corporate governance. Yet, what about Gamco’s own governance?
Regards,
Ted
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/business/dealbook/a-shareholder-advocate-in-word-but-not-in-practice.html?ref=business&_r=0
Source: Reference For Business.Com:
Founded in 1987, Gabelli Growth Fund was first managed by Elizabeth Bramwell, an analyst Gabelli met at Columbia during their student days. Gabelli Growth Fund achieved an annualized return of about 40 percent in 1988 and 1989, better than her boss's own performance. She resigned in 1994 after finding herself locked out of her office for refusing to move from Manhattan to suburban Rye, New York, where corporate headquarters had been established two years earlier. Bramwell said the performance of her fund had slipped vis-à-vis Gabelli's own results partly because she was not being allotted the staff she needed as the fund grew in size. She won $850,000 from Gabelli in an arbitration award regarding compensation allegedly due her.

But you do know these Dream Merchants have no more insights or clues to where the markets are headed than you, me, or the man in the moon??

I think their main job and money making is to get paid subscribers. I think also, that the value of their information is directly inverse to the amount they say or write.

Amen!! You got it! I was the only one of the speakers who actually brought his last 10 years of brokerage statements. Most self proclaimed experts couldn't trade their way out of a paper bag. Ask them for some validation of their prowess or that they even trade, and they will give you 1001 excuses why that is not possible. Someday I should repost something from the 90s I penned titled - Crooks, Con Men, and Charlatans.

Hi Guys,
The 2015 edition of the Las Vegas MoneyShow ended a few days ago. I attended only some of their many presentations. I wasn’t motivated to mention my planned attendance because in past years, the MFO membership responded with a deep yawn. That’s okay; I learn.
One novel aspect to the 2015 general format was the introduction of a Cannabis section that preceded the conventional MoneyShow agenda. The Cannabis sessions were paid events so I did not attend any of these presentations.
I did not take many notes, but I do have a general takeaway feeling that the professional market wiz-kids expressed relative to the market direction for the remainder of the year. A majority fraction of the experts are guardedly projecting positive returns from a narrowing market.
They observe that the current narrowing market is typically representative of aging Bull market runs. The present Bull market is third longest in history and will become the second longest if it extends into next year. One reason they are sanguine about the market has to do with the Presidential election cycle.
Presidential candidates will paint ultra-rosy pictures for their special programs. Louie Navellier jokingly advised that we should vote for the happiest candidate to best extend the likelihood of positive returns. On the negative signal side, Jim Stack cautioned that only 17% of the forecasters see near-term approaching dark clouds. That’s a contrarians warning sign. As usual, we get to choose our own poison.
For informational purposes, you might be interested in a Bull and Bear market summary paper assembled by Ed Yardeni. Here is a Link to that 10-page summary:
http://www.yardeni.com/pub/sp500corrbear.pdf
I did make a note of one interesting observation made by one of the MoneyShow exhibitors (I didn’t record his name). He noticed that the S&P 500 dividend exceeded the 10-year Treasury bond yield for a brief period in mid-January. Apparently that’s an extremely rare happening. He reported that whenever that did occur, the stock market rewarded investors with high payoffs.
Here is a Link to a January MarketWatch article that examined this occurrence:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-dividend-yields-are-above-treasury-yields----and-thats-bullish-2015-01-20
If the article has been posted earlier, I apologize. I completely missed it. Sorry Ted.
The three earlier occurrences are really insufficient to make grand statistical inferences, but the next year outsized rewards for these events were eye-popping. More fuel for the fire. Good luck guys integrating these data into your decision making.
Best Regards.