If I figure that one out I am keeping it to myself. :-)

And my graphical analysis tells me that we're around the middle of a 20-year relatively-flat DOW cycle (with the usual amounts of minor peaks and valleys) until around 2020-2025, after which the next phase should be 20 years of 'up and to the right'...

I may be dead before that one is proven right or wrong, but I still recommend MarketMinder and Ken Fisher for their comments on things like 'the inevitability of market corrections' and such....

One thing they both consistently say is, "historical data has virtually no predictive value for the stock markets."

No matter how much we'd love that to be true.
If there are any such cycles, I suggest that they are caused by political influences of/by government, and THAT may have some cyclical nature, and THAT may be driven by some calendar (like Presidential or Congressional election cycles?)...

Figure that one out and you may get a Nobel in Economics... :)

My concern is that we have not had a true market correction in about 5 years. They average about every 18 months. When we do have a downturn it could be huge. I'm not buying any subscriptions cause no one really knows when and how much it will drop.

Yep, watched and read a prediction of that Crash just the other night... coming within the next six months!

Oh, wait... that report was dated summer '14...

Whatever... at the end of the 'report' were the subscription offers for their newsletters and reports.

Why would anyone facing such huge potential gains in that kind of market be offering subscriptions to people who would be competing with them for the same profits?....

Um, wait... I think an answer is coming through... :)

Rich, check MarketMinder.com or Ken Fisher... when rates rose after QE-whatever was tapered off in Europe, the stock markets didn't crash.

Increased 'rates' might actually incent banks to loan money to US Murkins rather than squirrel it away in the Ultra-Safe-er Fed Notes... the ultra-low Guaranteed Rates still look safer to banks than the riskier 'free-market-risky' things that are alternatives, and banks get punished today BY the government regs for taking risks they would not have batted an eyelash at EVER in the past.

More Unintended Consequences.... Surprise!

Reminds me of the time a freshman coed, puzzling over some Physics Lab data with a problem... she couldn't figure out why her data was so different from what was expected...

After perusing the data points, I suggested that some of the 'timing variation' in the imprecise 'clock-ticks' could explain the discrepancies, but all she had to do was to smooth out the resulting curve, draw a red circle around the 'outlier data point' and provide an explanation of why she thought it WAS an 'outlier.'

She saw the logic in that and got an A for the lab report. And an honest engineer was born.

I believe that one of the Problems y'all are describing comes from the apparent inability of the folks plotting the data points and inferring the conclusions to be dead honest about which data points DON'T fit their theory and their refusal or inability to include their explanation of Why They Don't.

Something about logic, integrity...something like that.

Yes, because they refuse to call it a snake. That's what happens when you refuse to deal with reality - it has an ugly habit of asserting it's true nature even when libs don't want it too. It's why they can never get policy right.

I dont believe anything the pundits say. They all have hidden agendas. I would say that I think all that printed money is getting into regular circulation now, as opposed to just staying in the hands of the people who get first dibs on printed money. More traffic and more renting of buildings is something I have noticed in the last couple of months. A LOT more traffic here in Las Vegas (not visitor traffic but locals traffic). With all the money printed by Obama, it had to go somewhere and I think its come back to roost. I have also noticed inflation in prices accelerating faster at the same time. Everything from Subway sandwiches to items in Costco. Gas just went up 20 cents a gallon here in a week.

" I believe it is incumbent upon those of us who post opinions to support them with facts and explanations." I think we do a pretty good job of holding peoples' feet to the fire. Sometimes people just want the conversation and not have to cite everything they write. evidence and supporting arguments on Objectivist principles abound in here. welcome to the gulch jax...err robbie...no jax! :)

devil is in the detail...for months, the breakdown of the age-group jobs numbers have shown that the jobs for the middle class have been decreasing (age 25-55) while the big increase is in PART_TIME jobs for 55 and older...the systematic destruction of the middle class

I once bought a bottle of wine by that name...but I never danced to that tune. Hey, check out my first essay in the Gulch, What Happened to Common Sense (Economics).

The White House, since Gere Ford has only published the U3 Number (Unemployed and receiving unemployment insurance compensation). If you want the real bad news go to www;bls.gov. Taking the available to work number from the 16 + working 35 hrs + gives you a real general Number, dividing it by the total population tells you the real percent of unemployed, Est. is 18 - 22% +/- 1.5 %.

We are under different names! I could have chosen a more appropriate pen name, but I have been JaxGary since I first crawled into the web in the early 1990s. I had a few followers in those days as I posted an internet newsletter, Stocks du Jour. OF course, that was BEFORE I became a broker; I had to give up the newsletter as a requirement of becoming a registered representative to avoid any compliance issues. By the way, that pretty much encompassed all of my knowledge of the French language!

We seem to have quite a bit I common! I enjoy reading your posts; both those containing facts and those containing opinions. I am only guessing here, but I assume we have more readers than posters. To those of you are reading: if you do not understand what is being presented or find it hard to see the connections between what is posted and how you perceive reality, PLEASE post your concerns and/or questions. I believe it is incumbent upon those of us who post opinions to support them with facts and explanations. Some concepts require more effort than others to fully grasp.

I know of nobody who has recently received a wage increase of anything near 2%. Even the military is talking about a 1.something% increase.
Of course...maybe they're referencing the ill-fated increases in the minimum wage (up to $15/hr) that many of our socialist state legislatures are phasing in?
I have two sons that have been out of work about as long as Obama has been president. I'll start to believe the economy is improving when I see them back to work (and no, they don't live with us).

Of course the bureaucrats of the State will lie to and steal from you. That is their job. They are professional confiscators of choice, property, wealth and freedom.

As far as the Fed, let it be. Simply abolish the “legal tender laws” and free us all to use whatever we want as money rather than being forced at gun-point to use the Fed’s phony money. A simplex (‘tho certainly not easy) solution.

"can't last" if you mean the down turn in the economy; YES is can and will. the people in power function on the philosophy of altruism, collectivism, socialism as well as several other ism's. what seems to be lost in the conversation is a simple fact of their lives and that is they were all educated in government schools and accepted all of the doctrine. they know no difference, as for 0 he has a character deficiency where by he sees that is not only doesn't do anything that is bad but that he can't.
then there are the rest of the congress also civil servants that will not rock the boat because one of them regardless of party wants to be where he is. keeping that in mind I would like to know how things can change. you might want to say the title of a 1960's broadway show and think about doing it :"stop the world I want to get off".

Like any other tool, statistics can be used or abused. Unfortunately the abuse always draws more attention that the use. Please do not take it personally as you obviously seem to be one of honest people in your profession. I am not a statistician, but I taught business stats for four years and I always hold statistical data "at arms length" since I know the propensity to exaggerate or support a prior claim is always present. I was a stock broker for 10 years and never once surrendered my integrity to do what my supervisor or firms wanted me to do; I always served my clients. It was hard to be in a profession where the norm seems to be amoral or immoral because those are the representatives who bring in the majority of the wealth to their firms. I finally had to realize that people who complained about brokers were not complaining about me! I was there to help clients and gain personal knowledge; I achieved both personal goals.

Excellent. Well said. +1

That is because both Bernanke and Yellen have succumbed to a basic illusion; the fallacy of control. People seem to think they can actually exercise control things over which they have no real influence. In this case, they can make the bad come sooner with greater consequences; but they cannot solve the problem BECAUSE the Fed IS the problem!