Found on ZeroHedge.com, here is a Credit Suisse chart.
More and more fundamental and technical contrary indicators are pointing in the same direction. Markets that are manipulated such as this one are even more difficult to forecast than ever, but what I especially don't like is that if one goes back to the euphoria spike around late 1999 to the current spike, the market averages are down in nominal terms and down hard in inflation-adjusted terms.
In other words, we may be looking at a high level of optimism and therefore at relatively high share prices superimposed on a continuing structural bear market. In contrast, the 1987 peak in optimism was in the setting of a massive, overbought structural bull market in financial assets and steady growth in wages, profits, jobs, stock payouts, stock buybacks, yada yada yada. The brief bear market merely brought the averages back to the uptrend line. Anyone who wishes can check long-term charts of such stocks that have gone up massively since their bottoms such Ford, AmEx, BofA, etc. and still find virtually all of them within structural bears: lower highs as of today with lower lows established since last November or this March. (And this is without adjusting for inflation (or, for BofA and its ilk, without adjusting for dividend payouts, to be fair)).
If stock averages are to move lower in the near term, it appears likely that money will move into intermediate-to-long Treasuries. In fact, the chart of TLT (long T-bonds) tracked the up and down jiggles of the stock averages today amazingly. The junkiest stocks such as Citigroup that have gone up the most percentage-wise are the most obvious candidates for decline, even if they should be fated to be bull market favorites over the next few years. Or, they could just turn out like Nortel and eventually simply fade away.
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