DOW, S&P500 nearing all time highs from 2007

The Dow and S&P500 closed at all-time highs of 14,164 and 1,565 in October 2007.

Dow is at 14080 and S&P500 at 1508.

Now we have to keep in mind that the indices had different components in 2007 (Lehman, GM, Bear, AIG), so it's not a fair comparison, but watch out for pundits pumping the all time highs. For me, this means shorting is gonna be a good bet soon.

Stock markets have been in a huge trading band since 2000 and if history is any guide (e.g. 1964-1982), then we're gonna see another downturn before the stock market gets another sustainable rally like 1982-1999.



Let's say the DOW were to be cut in half to 7000 from here, wouldn't that make a good DOW/gold ratio of 1:1 withing say 2-3 years?

The Dow may well be near it's histyorical high, but it got there on ultra thin volumes. This feels very deja vu to me.

A few interesting facts:
Margin debt is at multi year highs -> bearish
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-...8-levels-everyone-all-levered-and-selling-vol

Post-election years are historically weak for stock markets, especially if stock had rallied in the preceding presidential term

read more here: http://www.streettalklive.com/daily...o-expect-from-post-election-year-markets.html

Again, history seems to rhyme prety well as I look at this chart SA. What is really scary to me is the fact that "banks" likely account for much of the market these days and they account for nearly all of the big bond movement, so if the market comes unglued, and it most certainly will, can the banks really afford to take that hit, or do they unravel as well?

Stocks are about the ONLY things that are moving, this seems very unbalanced to me. And it does feel risky now...

Moi? Sure I own some stocks, but not nearly as much as 15 - 18 years ago. For many of these last bunch of years I have been a net seller of stocks, but in the past TWO years I have sold next to nothing. I have some candidate sells (or partial sells, many of these I still want to hold at least SOME in case the future is better than I guess -- as my guesses are worth SQUAT, particularly short-term, we have some of each of these):

CAT
IBM
UTX (United Technologies)
TXN (Texas Instruments)
SLB (Schlumberger)
PG

All of the above have served us well. And it HURTS now to have to think about selling, but, good companies that have had their stocks run up, MUST be looked at with cold eyes and a cold heart to preserve what our kid (grandchildren later?) will get.

***

And, of course, some of the proceeds from any sales of stock go right into physical gold...

I am way too chicken shit to own paper of any kind right now. Little Ancona has a two inch stack of savings bonds her Grandmother bought her each month starting from her birth and continuing for fourteen years until she passed. As those mature, she will roll in to cash or shiny and hold on for teh ride.

More bearish news:

Retail is finally buying stocks again


Margin debt soaring even more


Everybody is short the VIX


... and long the Russel 2000

interesting charts. The only issue i have is i have been reading these negative bearish slants from zero hedge about the mkt for the past 4 yrs. his charts and analysis are very compelling but i have learned i think he is too one sided in his opinions.

while there may very well be a correction, say 5-10% I really think anything like a 2000 or 2008 style 50% crash are extremely unlikely. something dramatic would have to happen for that to happen. And something dramatic may happen but to invest based on outlier events happening is very difficult.

although the recovery is extremely slow and employment seems to be improving at a snails pace, it is improving. I would caution against making any trading calls with long term funds, unless you feel something you own has become extremely overvalued. with interest rates at 2% for 10 yr the bar has to be pretty high to sell a well run business earning 6-10% earnings yield and 2-3% dividend to boot.

my 2 cents fwiw.

Escobar,
I certainly agree with the ZeroHedge commentary here, but I think a 10% correction may even be overdue at this juncture. Volumes indicate that the retail participation is all but nonexistent, so any exodus will not be mom and pop, it will be large wholesalers bailing out of either bad bets or out of crashing positions. It won't be blocks of a hundred brother, it will be blocks of a half million being dive boarded.

ancona said:

Again, history seems to rhyme prety well as I look at this chart SA. What is really scary to me is the fact that "banks" likely account for much of the market these days and they account for nearly all of the big bond movement, so if the market comes unglued, and it most certainly will, can the banks really afford to take that hit, or do they unravel as well?

Click to expand...

...ancona, banks can currently "afford" anything, as long as there are some sorry feckers left, trying to make their living, to be enslaved to bail them out. I thought we've all learned the lesson yet?



The Dow chart '09-'12 looks to me, like the growth is asymptotically slowing down (towards flat), when approaching all time high level. Not a good sign, I think - looks to me like a lot of printing will be required, to maintain the "robust" market growth of late.

Bushi, my point was mostly sarcasm, but I do think that at some point all of that "liquidity" TGovCo is allowing to fall out of the spiggot will someday have to be sopped back up. At the very least, they will be forced to stop with the monetization. When the balloon goes up, it will be spectacular. The columns of smoke will be visible for miles and miles.

We're now 50 points away from the DOWs all time high. We could see that by the close.

Seems like we're not gonna reach the highs today.

Another day without new highs despite skyrocketting margin debt:

What could possibly go wrong...

Several months ago, maybe even years ago, I stated that I thought that 2013 would see another bust something like 2008. So far this year everything points to that scenario.

Why did I say that? One reason is that historically there is usually a second bust, usually a few years after the first one.

A more important reason is that Crap-O-Care was scheduled to kick in hard at the beginning of 2013, and even harder at the beginning of 2014. Crap-O-Care is sucking all of the life out of the business sector which, I believed then and still do believe, will cause a bust this year. How bad? No clue. But with everything happening, it looks like it may be VERY bad.

Third, business so far this year is TOTALLY CRAPPY. Usually January is the bellweather month for the whole year for me. January is usually my BEST month every year, usually equal or greater than the previous three months combined. This year? It was WORSE than EACH ONE OF THE LAST THREE MONTHS. And February was just as bad. If this is a sign of the rest of the year, it might be time for me to lock the doors and quit. Most times I can look at January and project for the rest of the year. Doing that this year spells doom for my business. And I am not the only one. Everywhere I go I hear the same thing, "Business is crappy and we don't know if we can survive."

In fact, just today, I started buying inventory (at near scrap prices) from a customer 200 miles from me that is closing his doors, and he IS BRINGING THE STUFF TO ME! Another customer, also 200 miles from me, wants me to come and clean him out at HALF OF SCRAP VALUE before he files for bankruptcy. I know I can make money on both deals IF I CAN SURVIVE the downturn, but that is the thousand dollar question.

Fourth, new highs are seldom achieved without a major correction first, anywhere from 10% to 40%.

Dow at all time highs. Let's all party like it's 1999:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ncb9_prince-1999_music#.UTYCKldDEoE

This can only end badly I am afraid. Sure, the Dow can trade at 20,000, but what is the dollar going to look like? I believe these ass clowns will pump this bad boy all the way up to popalicious levels, and then one day soon [rest assured that "no one will see it coming"] Blammo! When the bottom finally drops out from beneath this Potemkin market, look out downstream, because the shit will have enough momentum to roll over the entire world economy.

The Dark Princes know exactly what they are doing, and in fact have been planning this for a very long time, indeed for generations now. They want to bring it all down to show the world how badly we need one world government and one world currency, which of course they will be willing to manage for a small fee.

What they haven't counted on is the fact that one hundred million armed citizens will be furious beyond their best ability to manage, and in fact those citizens may just opt for torches and pitchforks, hanging all those responsible from lamp posts from sea to shining sea.

When it blows, and it will, it will be biblical in scope and scale. The columns of smoke will be visible for miles.

Makes sense. /sarc

I can't remember where I read the other day about insiders (executives at public companies) selling their shares in record fashion as the DOW is soaring. Caveat emptor. Winning at musical chairs is great until you are the one who loses.

...

edit: Here's one report: http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/06/investing/insider-selling-stocks/index.html

Where are we?

Everyone ready for the equity market pull back?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dow-s...RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3

"In previous rallies from bear markets to breakeven the median additional gain has been just 3 percent before "another meaningful decline within only two months," Stovall added.

In the 11 other bear markets since 1946, five of them suffered declines of 5 to 10 percent after getting back to even, while six fell 10 to 20 percent. The only good news, according to Stovall, is that none of those morphed into full bear market drops of 20 percent or more."

PMBug said:

I can't remember where I read the other day about insiders (executives at public companies) selling their shares in record fashion as the DOW is soaring. Caveat emptor. Winning at musical chairs is great until you are the one who loses.

Click to expand...

Bidermann is mentioning it lately few times - Companies are making big buybacks (it's only shareholders' money, after all...), but insiders are selling, he mentions the ratio at around 50:1, but I do not remember what ratio it is. But you don't have to be a rocket scientist, to figure out the meaning of this.

bushi said:

Bidermann is mentioning it lately few times - Companies are making big buybacks (it's only shareholders' money, after all...), but insiders are selling, he mentions the ratio at around 50:1, but I do not remember what ratio it is. But you don't have to be a rocket scientist, to figure out the meaning of this.

Click to expand...

read yesterday the ratio is now 100 to 1.

It's only new highs measured in nominal fiat, though...so I don't count that, though the talking heads ignore the fact. But as usual, most of the market is full of people who don't get it and I have to trade as if the ticker is the truth - because it is.

I too think we'll see a major correction, but it's all too easy to be right too soon, and therefore wrong, so I sit here and pay attention to what is actually happening.

While waiting for a box from apmex.

Company stock buy-backs and massive insider selling equals inside information and those who have the gold, getting more gold before the Great RE-set. It's coming folks......it's coming.

Now the German stock index DAX is about to take out all time highs at 8100, currently trading at 8000

This is looking more and more like a self-deluded blow-off top every day in markets.
While the talking heads are talking "The great rotation" and "money on the sidelines", I'm not seeing either - I AM seeing that margin usage is at all time highs, a far simpler Occam kind of explanation. Despite the sell-side yammer, this market is NOT cheap, productivity per manhour is going down as there's a little more hiring..I'm guessing we'll see those record profit margins mean-revert real soon now.

That margin number means a hell of a lot of weak-hand longs are driving this on the simplest analysis...won't take much to start a cascade down.

Stay safe out there - it's time to be paying close attention over the next few.
I've stopped picking up pennies in front of what I perceive as an oncoming steamroller, and that's not usual for me, just sayin'. Not quite time to be short unless you have balls of iron, but...

Curious whether the last hour of trading ramp jobs are statistically significant? They are:

Mila Kunis Rotates From Cash to Stocks [calls the top]
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mila-...RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3

"shut up Meg" /Family Guy

Copper is down hard today, too. So is oil.

All commodities are signalling a global slowdown.
Key economic indicators have disappointed everywhere.
Stockmarkets in many countries are already down a lot.
Cyclical companies like FedEx and Caterpillar have reported poor earnings and cut outlooks.
Still, broad US stock indices are trading close to all-time highs.

That's a screaming short.

swissaustrian said:

Copper is down hard today, too. ...

Click to expand...

Of course! /Bizarro World