This month: Technology, interest rates, inflation, construction costs, new “you know what” variant, market summary, age 72+ client mandatory RMD IRA withdrawals due in late December and MarketCycle’s 2021 charitable contribution goes to the Turpin children (from ABC’s ‘Escape From a House of Horror’).  

I’ve heard it repeated a zillion times in articles, websites, financial channels and even from clients (and even today):  “Inflation kills technology.”  What they mean is that rising prices (inflation) and rising interest rates (via the Federal Reserve) will kill off the technology stock sector.  This is the stock sector that has lead the stock market higher since 2009.  My thesis for the past 13 years has been that technology stocks, over a total 20 year expanse of time, will lead the market higher, at least until 2029.

So, the question is this:  “Will inflation murder technology?”

Our brief answer is:  “No!”

As readers know, I like to use charts to prove my points.  Charts are data made visable.

Inflation means that, wherever you might live, it takes more of your country’s currency to purchase an item than it took in the recent past.  In the United States, the value of the USDollar has steadily fallen.  In just the past two decades of printing and spending, if one would consider the Dollar worth 100 cents in the year 2000, then it would be worth only 60 cents today.  It has lost 40% of its value in just two decades.  If in the year 2000 you had parked $100,000 in a savings account paying close to 0%, then the value of your money has been reduced by 40% during this short period that had very low inflation; without spending a dime, you now have $60,000 and 20 wasted years.  With the current rapidly rising inflation levels this is about to get much worse.  This is why it is so important to actually INVEST your money because if you don’t, it eventually gets whittled down to nothing.  The past 20 year loss of purchasing power has occured during a period when wages have not gone up for most people.  (Chart courtesy of WolfStreet).

The loss in purchasing power results in inflation.  Economists can only look at past economic data because of the time that it takes to collect & interpret the numbers & information.  But MarketCycle’s proprietary indicators (not shown here) are designed to ACCELERATE data and our indicators suggest that inflation actually peaked in July of 2021 and that it has gyrated sideways ever since that date.  We were likely the first to see inflation begin In March of 2020 and we are now one of the very few advisories currently suggesting that it has likely already peaked, although certain factors like housing costs which are just now showing up in the data, could make inflation move a bit higher again before heading lower to form a new base.  Of note, the cost of construction, building new or remodeling old, has gone up 13.3% in just the past 12 months (year-over-year) and on an item as expensive as a house, this is an astronomical additional pocketbook hit. (Chart courtesy of CapitalSpectator):

Is high inflation harming stocks?  Owning stocks represents nothing other than you having partial ownership of a corporation.  Stocks and the economy are not the same things; despite rising costs (inflation), corporate profits are at multi-year highs.  Profitable corporations = stock market goes up.  (Chart courtesy of Charles Schwab)

INVESTING during inflationary periods…

According to Bloomberg Research, technology is, by far, the best sector to hold during inflationary periods:

According to the OECD, in a stock bull market, technology is the best sector to hold in an inflationary rising interest rate environment:

According to Fidelity Research, when nominal interest rate yields are up, the technology sector leads the way higher for the U.S. stock market:

We currently have to deal with a double-whammy.  Interest rates are lower than at any time during the past 5000 years and this is at the very same time that we have entered an inflationary spike.  My current thinking, and this might change, is that we will see 2-3 inflationary spikes (where each new bottom is higher than the last) before we enter the steadily inflationary decade of the 2030’s.

The markets go through repeating & long-lasting secular cycles that affect all financial assets.  We see a prolonged period of inflation which is then followed by decades of deflation, and then inflation arrives all over again; it is like breathing in and then out and then in.  And different assets perform best in each scenario.  We just experienced 40 years of slow-motion deflation which will now be followed by many years of inflation (slow & stumbling at first, then steadily building).  Even this universe that we live in experiences inflation (expansion) and it will then, eventually, experience deflation (contraction).

Inflationary cycles affect interest rate cycles.  This next chart shows the past 5000 years of interest rate levels; we are now at record deflationary lows with inflation now having nowhere to go but higher.  (Chart is courtesy of Bank of America Global Research):

The 40 year interest rate cycle hit its official bottom in March of 2020 and it is now turning around to run in the opposite direction.  This next chart shows the past 200 years of just the United States interest rate levels.  I expect the coming rate cycle peak to be much higher than it was in 1980 and for the final peak to occur in the mid-to-later 2030’s.  (Chart is courtesy of Technical Research Advisors):

And right now?  The Federal Reserve is always too late to act against inflation and this always causes an eventual recession.  The key word is “eventual.”  They very likely won’t raise interest rates until we’re well into 2022, but they are already at record negative real rates as inflation rises (per chart below).  The last time that they raised interest rates (from 2016 to 2019) it took a full 39 months from the start of the rate increases to cause the recessionary bear market of March 2020.  So, when they raise rates the stock market will not crash; it may not even pay much attention to it for years.  And yes, technology stocks will continue to head higher.  The concensus, including from Goldman Sachs, is for two rate hikes in 2022 and that ‘danger’ has already been priced into the stock market.  (Chart courtesy of Bloomberg)

Our current high inflationary level is not likely to drift back down until mid-2022.  This next chart shows that people are still buying everything that they can get their hands on; goods consumption remains 11% above trend, although it appears that it may have peaked (see the early-2021 peak in the dark blue line).  Because of the pandemic, consumers couldn’t utilize as many consumer service providers (light blue line) because they couldn’t leave their houses.  Since people feel that they must continually spend money, they shifted their spending away from consumer services and toward consumer goods.  The couldn’t get their toenails painted, so they bought televisions.  The resultant temporary empty shelves (from competition for fewer goods) resulted in our current & temporary inflation spike.  Long term, out in the future, intractable high inflation will be caused by world governments continuing to spend money that they do not have… as if debt never has to be re-paid.

SUMMARY:  In my continued opinion, U.S. technology stocks will lead the market higher for another 8 years.  Almost everyone out there is pushing REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts), regional bank stocks and energy stocks.  I would add gold and TIPs to the mix (TIPS are Treasury-bonds that are protected from rising inflation).  MarketCycle holds all of these assets in our portfolios, in one way or another, but we still love the U.S. technology sector.

Despite Friday’s pullback, the stock and commodity markets are still showing strength.  Calculated recession probabilities 3 months out are still below 1%, which is incredibly bullish.  Expected GDP is @ 5.5%, which is incredibly bullish.  BUT MarketCycle’s proprietary indicators are hinting at a Spring(?) of 2022 pullback of perhaps 10-15% and we’re watching everything closely and we plan to hedge accounts ahead of the event.

Consumer spending has been pushing the economy higher but that is now about to (slowly) rotate toward corporations pushing the economy higher as they become flush with new infrastructure cash.  And all but 5 countries on the planet are in expansionary mode, which is incredibly bullish.

I tend to look at things from a longer-term perspective.  When I state in this monthly article that bonds or crypto-currencies or inflation will likely soon drop, I may not mean next week; I likely mean in less than six months.  At my age and with the way that my mind works, time takes on a different meaning.  This current inflation spike will likely not last, but that does not mean that it will end next week; it still has some tailwinds behind it.  The Fed could stop inflation today merely by raising rates sufficiently, but they always act too late because of their fear of damaging the stock market.  Our indicators, which accelerates the very same data at which they look, shows that they should move sooner rather than later.  They should make their move soon, but they won’t.

I’d repeatedly written that, this Fall, we would touch the upper trend channel with the S&P-500 hitting somewhere between 4600 and 4700 and that the market would then slightly pull back.  That event happened at 4650.  Most recently (in a Client Market Update) I said that stocks would pull back in late November; they did that on Friday 26th with the Dow’s 900 point drop.  It could go somewhat lower in the near-term, but I don’t think by much.  I used Friday’s opportunity to put additional new client money to work when the Dow was down roughly 1100 points in early morning trading.  My target for before the end of 2021 has been at 4800 (we almost touched that the other day), and although I expect to see one bigger market pullback during the spring or possibly the early summer, we could still see the S&P-500 @ 5400 by the end of 2022.  It is difficult to stop a charging bull.

The new variant (and yet another chance for me to upset people):  I wrote a blog on this topic several months ago and it is still available on the website.  Some loved it, some ignored it, some hated it, two (now-ex) blog readers threatened me.  What people need to know about me is that I have a lot of information crammed into my brain and that I never say anything unless I know it to be either true or to be very likely true.  So, the new variant fulfills everything stated in the blog:  more contagious, much less lethal (we are slowly approaching a level where it will not be too different from the common flu), it likely by-passes the vaccine and, most importantly, it might have the ability to use the RNA vaccine to make itself more contagious (all of this is covered in that blog).  This virus, just like what the common-cold corona-virus did many years ago, is slowly becoming both permanent and weaker… and just another part of what comprises our daily lives.

2021 IRA RMD:  In December, United States’ clients age 72 and older must take their 2021 RMD withdrawal out of any IRA retirement account (but not ROTHS) that MarketCycle holds.  There are RMD calculators online and all you need to know is what your account balance was on the last day of 2020 & your birth-date and then go to your online MarketCycle/IB account, click on Transfer Funds, Withdraw, Wire, USD, Amount.  I need to be notified first in order to make sure that there is a sufficient cash balance in your account before withdrawal but my plan is to raise the cash in these accounts by December 20th.  December may be a strong month, so there is no rush.

2021 CHARITY… MarketCycle Wealth Management’s 2021 CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTION:  In the name of our clients, we normally give a fairly large donation to a charity that protects ecosystems or that builds playgrounds in poor communities, etc.  This year we’re going to take a different turn.  If you saw the Diane Sawyer ABC Special on the Turpin siblings (Escape From a House of Horror), you would know the story about 13 siblings that were systematically starved, tortured, caged, choked & beaten, chained and kept in a constant condition of pervasive filth by their psychopathic parents for their entire childhood until the oldest female child escaped at the age of 17.  She had been taught that if she ever tried to escape, then the people living outside of her house would kill her.  The night of her brave escape, with no neighbors awake to help her, she eventually talked to a police officer, who was the first real human outside of her brothers and sisters that she had ever spoken to.  Totally uneducated, she didn’t even know how to correctly pronounce the words that she was speaking: “siblings” became “sib-lingahs.”  She and her sisters & brothers were saved that night by some very kind police officers.  A Go-Fund-Me page was set up where it accumulated a large sum of money and they were put into Foster Care homes.  Apparently, social workers then stole all of their Go-Fund-Me money and the foster care families decided that it was now their turn to beat, abuse and starve them.  Literally nobody checked on the kids either before or after their escape.  With Diane Sawyer’s help, they are now in good foster care homes and a real funding source has been set up for them.  How do 13 children come out of a situation like that and then just show nothing but innocent kindness and love toward others?  You can see the two older girls in the photo above; you can also see their parents who are now both serving life-term sentences in prison.  So, long story short, before Christmas I will write a check earmarked for the Taupin kids and send it to the jaycfoundation.org.  I plan to follow through with more money at a later date.  I want to thank our clients for this privilege since it is basically a chunk of the management fee that we collect.    

Thanks for reading! 

MarketCycle Wealth Management is in the business of navigating your investment account through rough waters.  The process is easy, our fee is low, we earn our keep and our first three months are at no charge (so that you can safely get your feet wet).  Unsolicited client comments can be found at the bottom of our home page (click “HOME” above on this website.

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MARKET CYCLE  —  DUAL MOMENTUM  —  LOW VOLATILITY  —  TREND FOLLOWING  —  HEDGE FUNDS

A price chart is a sequence of prices ploted over a specific timeframe; information is shown at the top, prices on the right and time at the bottom.  A price chart can plot the price of almost anything, including the cost of a head-of-lettuce, over any selected period of time.  Shown below is what you want to see on a stock price chart.  CSQ is one of our portfolio holdings and it has an almost identical price chart to our other closed-end-fund (CEF) holdings of RNP and ACV.  Over just the past 12 months, CSQ started at a price of $12 per share and it is now $18.62 per share for a 12 month gain of roughly 55% and it also paid 5.5% in interest payments directly into client accounts.  This was accomplished despite having lower risk than does the S&P-500.  You want to see chart price lines moving up from lower left to upper right.

PDBC is our commodities fund.  We picked this particular fund because it does not exploit animals as commodities and it sometimes pays interest (I’ve seen the yield as high as 2.5%) and it has no complicated K-1 tax form.  And we like this type of fund because it merely sets its value based on the price of commodities and it does not participate in the actual mining, drilling, lumbering or basic exploitation of the environment.  Notice how PDBC moves differently than CSQ so it helps to smooth out the path of profits; sometimes when stocks and bonds drop, PDBC will go up.  PDBC has gained 70% in the past 12 months (try beating this via flipping houses!):

SWAN is an example of a protective portfolio asset that MarketCycle also holds.  Like CSQ, it also moves from lower left to upper right, which is good, but it was less profitable during the past 12 months because it generates most of its outperformance when markets correct, and there has not been any meaningful stock market correction during the past year.  Still, it is doing its job while making another 20% in profit in just 12 months (similar to the gains on our gold-bullion trust holding).

From CNBC as reported in the October 29, 2021 issue of The Week:  “The wealthiest 10% of Americans now own 89% of all U.S. stocks held by households, a record high.  The top 1% of all Americans gained more than $6.5-trillion in the stock market since the Covid-19 pandemic began, while the bottom 90% made $1.2-trillion, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve.”   

On Tuesday October 19th, the stock market suddenly became very strong again.  Very strong.  We had predicted a September pullback and MarketCycle used the opportunity to add to account positions with new client money; we did so on the exact day of the pullback bottom and the stock market has marched straight up from that day to today.  MarketCycle recently sent out a private Client Market Update with a list of our near-term predictions and they all proved to be correct except for our call for bitcoin to move lower.  Bitcoin rose instead when it got wind of the news that a new bitcoin ETF (BITO) had been approved by the SEC and was about to come out (and 8 similar ETFs are in the works).  A chart of bitcoin will be presented further below.

I have to use several services to gather and assemble all of the information that I need each day, but I usually present StockCharts in my blogs because the charts are so clean.  In March of 2020 (when we were still at point “A” on the chart below) I drew the new upper trend channel line (indicated by “B“) of where I thought that the stock bull market was headed; at the time this line was just sitting all alone out in chart-space.  I wrote repeatedly about this by saying that the S&P-500 would soon head up to between 4500 and 4600, depending on how rapidly it moved higher; it ultimately hit 4550 before pulling back (right in the middle of my prediction range) and the S&P-500 re-touched this 4550 number again on Thursday October 21st and then closed at a new record high.  If my predictions remain on track, we will have over 1000 new record highs over the next 8 years.  And we should expect the S&P-500 to hit 4700 before the Spring of 2022.

So, the S&P-500 will likely churn higher, moving along the bottom side of the “B” line shown below for the next couple of years.  It did the same thing in 2013 & 2014.  The bull charges ahead!

The all important S&P-500 Advance/Decline Price Line (which shows the breadth of market participation… it reveals whether a market is running on all cylinders), as it has done since March of 2009, it is still saying that we are in a Secular stock bull market.  The S&P-500 is superimposed as a grey line:

In the near-term, all U.S. stock indexes remain above their individual short-term trendlines (blue dashed lines below).  A trendline is just a line, usually at around 45 degrees, that indicates market direction and once established the markets tend to want to touch the line repeatedly.  Small cap stocks (labeled as $RUT below) are showing weakness but this is only natural as we now leave the early-cycle and enter the mid-cycle portion of the current market cycle.  The pundits on the financial sites are out promoting “cheap” small-cap stocks, but sometimes certain stocks (or even entire categories of stocks) are cheap for a reason.

Market strength:  The United States continues to lead in strength relative to all other regions of the globe.  The U.K. is also surprisingly strong.  The most recent stock bull market started in late March of 2020 and it still has a long way to go before it reaches the end of this market cycle.  We have left the early-cycle and are entering the mid-cycle where stocks will continue to plow ahead, but in a slightly slower and more choppy manner.  $3.5-trillion is still sitting on the sidelines in the United States; it is waiting to go into the markets or to be spent in the economy.  Low interest rates plus strong cash levels = stocks to go higher.

Market weakness:  The only major countries showing measurable current economic distress are:  Canada, Luxembourgh, China, Argentina and Brazil.

Fixed-rate bonds often move in the opposite direction of stocks.  The main reason that bonds are held in investment portfolios is because they usually go up when stocks go down.  The most likely near-term direction for bonds is lower and perhaps down to the red dashed line on this next chart.  So, they will likely move down as stocks move higher.  Generalized fixed-rate bond weakness will likely persist for the next 15-ish years.  Roughly speaking, for each & every 1% rise in bond yields, the value of your fixed-rate bonds will go down by 10%.  Ouch.  We are just now coming out of the biggest bond bubble in the history of the universe; it was 40 years in the making.

Inflation means that the prices of everything that we consume, both goods and services, are heading higher.  Inflation is caused by supply chain disruptions and/or by money printing.  14% of all of the USDollars ever printed were created during the past 12 months.  The good news is that wages also generally head higher during inflationary periods (although automation and robotics will ultimately keep a lid on the wage gains of real people).  MarketCycle’s system of indicators were the first that I know of to pick up on the current inflation story.  We saw it way back in March of 2020 and now it is the only story that anyone is talking about.  Our indicators tell us that inflation persists.  Although we may be wrong about this, over the longer term MarketCycle expects (roughly) three temporary inflation spikes, perhaps spaced two years apart, before inflation then just steadily grinds higher during the 2030’s.  We are experiencing the first inflation spike right now. 

Two great books on inflation & deflation:

1. Inflation Matters… by Pete Comley (Pete is a great guy that lives in the U.K. and he is a reader of this blog)
2. The Great Devaluation… by Adam Baratta

High inflation and falling bonds:  People that hold the typical 60%-stock/40%-bond portfolios (60/40 is the most common portfolio mix) or that simply hold a template of mixed assets (such as the ones that companies like Wells Fargo put out) or that invest in “can’t fail index ETFs & mutual funds” are all going to get punished going forward and for the next several decades.  Starting right now is the time that alpha-level professional help will really pay for itself.  My prediction is that the S&P-500 will no longer lead; you can no longer just “buy the market.”  Going forward, sector and factor selection for outperformance becomes of the utmost importance.

Interest rates?  MarketCycle has discovered how to accelerate the same data that the Federal Reserve looks at so that we know, ahead of them, what their next move will be.  Our indicators just changed to show that the Fed could now raise rates at any time.  The likely path would be to start with visible tapering in November, although they have already been secretly tapering for months.  Certainly there will be rate increases in early 2022, if not by late 2021.

Bitcoin is getting closer to forming a new price top.  Parabolic tops always correct rapidly once they start.  Nothing can go straight up forever and the faster & higher it rises now, the faster & lower it will fall in the future.  IMO, it should head lower sooner rather than later, perhaps down to 27,500 and this would be a greater than 50% loss, but it could drop down to any of the red dashed lines shown below, including all of the way down to 7000.  Charting bitcoin is problematic; this is an ‘asset’ that is actually only a ‘digit’ saved in one’s computer, so it ultimately could go as high or as low as the majority of (mostly young) traders imagine.  It is not really a usable currency and it will likely never be one simply because it is way, way too volatile and therefore offers no stability; currencies must hold a relatively stable value.

Bitcoin is an asset that consists of nothing tangible when almost every other investment asset represents something real and tangible, stocks are partial ownership in a corporation and gold can be held in one’s hand, but if bitcoin dropped to $7000 again I would be a buyer (or perhaps buy ethereum).  Cathie Wood of ARK Investments optimistically believes that “bitcoin will go to $500,000 in 5 years.”  The much respected Jamie Diamond of JPMorgan pessimistically called it “a fraud worse than the tulip mania of the early 17th century.”  Warren Buffett says that “it has no unique value at all.”  Donald Trump says that “it is built on a foundation of thin air.”  Elon Musk and Bill Gates both believe that Internet mining for bitcoin is destroying the environment because of the truly gigantic energy requirements involved in the process.  But the financially savvy Ashton Kutcher recently stated that “a revolution is taking place.”   

The IRS is cracking down on cryptocurrency profits and many people are going to be receiving heart-stopping letters in the mail.  They warned us but nobody listened.  And if President Biden replaces Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell (who dislikes bitcoin) with Janet Yellen (who hates bitcoin), she may outlaw or regulate its use and then institute an official Federal Reserve cryptocurrency; according to Ray Dalio, recently retired CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund, there is a decent chance of this actually happening.  Confusing, ain’t it.

And now for some levity:

That’s it; thanks for reading!

Please remember that MarketCycle has only one focus:  We carefully manage people’s investment accounts, positioning the portfolio for where we are in the market cycle (early, middle, late, recession) and constantly watching for increasing risk levels and moving to hedge (protect) accounts when risk levels rise.  We have clients all across the globe.  We’re here to help you, the process is easy, and our fee is remarkably low considering how correct our predictions and positioning are (I always say that we pay for ourselves).  The first 3 months are free.  There is a CONTACT TAB on our website.  Let us help you.

We have a second (paid member) website, MarketCycle Wealth REPORT, that offers weekly advice and it is available via the link on this webpage.  We now have a new REPORT section specifically for European and U.K. subscribers.

MARKET CYCLE  —  DUAL MOMENTUM  —  TREND FOLLOWING  —  LOW VOLATILITY  —  HEDGE FUND

We live in a world where everyone is absolutely certain about their facts and everyone is an authority on any topic that is even remotely of interest.  Consequently, some people will be offended by the following material.  We currently live in a world where there will be, today, ten fist fights in the aisles of commercial airplanes over whether one should wear a mask or not in crowded conditions.  So, I would ask that if you do not believe this information or if you do not agree with what I am presenting here, then please just ignore it.  Whether I succeed or fail, my goal is to present facts merely as facts and as FAQs.  I know that this is not ‘investing’ material but please just look at this as a ‘blog extra’ where I am, once again, just presenting my point of view on a topic and yes, I already know that my point of view is often controversial and contrarian and sometimes wrong.

My ultimate goal is to present this as a sort of public service, although it may not be read or believed by enough people to be of any help.  Parts of this article may make it sound as if I am against vaccines but I assure you that I am not.  In fact, I believe that the vaccines used against the majority of viruses (DNA viruses) are one of the best things that medicine does (along with emergency care, extreme acute care and plastic surgery).

I still read, on average, 15 peer reviewed medical articles per week.  And this posting represents a large body of research narrowed down to just 12 (printed) pages.  If you take it one sentence at a time, you will understand it.  You may not agree with it, but you will understand it.

From Scientific American, July 1, 2021:  “The popular move right now is to declare that we must follow the science.  But science is a process of learning and discovery, and sometimes we learn that what we thought was right is actually wrong.  We can’t even agree on what the ‘scientific method’ actually is.  Science is not simple and neither is the natural world.”

Print & PDF functions are at the bottom of the webpage and please feel free to share via the [+] button that is also at the bottom of the webpage.  Or send the link or send a PDF out to your friends via email.  And when you click on the ‘print’ function, it then also gives you a very easy & clear & simple ’email’ function.  Printing this article will allow you to read at your leisure and then, if you think that it may be of benefit, hand it off to a friend or stranger.

So, please PRINT this out…  and please SHARE.

COVID FAQs:

• What is Covid-19?  Covid-19 is a (deep lung) coronavirus, which is a type of virus that only infects mammals and it rarely jumps species.  The human common-cold is also a (sinus) coronavirus.  It is called a ‘corona’ virus because it wears a ‘crown’ of spikes (as shown above).  Covid-19 is a coronavirus that infected human mammals starting in 2019.  Whether this strain escaped from a lab or from a wet-market (that sells bats as ‘food’ out of filthy stalls), it likely jumped from bats to humans because there is a 96% similarity.  Recent documents slipped out of the Wuhan Lab suggest that Covid-19 may have been accidently released from the Chinese lab (Google:  ‘Wuhan Scientists Planned to Release Coronavirus Into Cave Bats 18 Months Before Outbreak’).   Regardless, the Covid-19 coronavirus, along with the longstanding common-cold coronavirus, is now a human mammal virus.  Viruses in general are not living things, they are pure genetic material contained in a capsule.  When they inject themselves into a living cell, their genetic material takes over control of the cell and they become both different and ‘alive’ with the ability to reproduce.  Like a horror movie, their surprisingly intelligent goal seems to be to reproduce in a host that they do not kill so that the host can be reused all over again at a later date.  With RNA viruses, mutations are how they ultimately pull that off and that is explained further below.

• When will it all end?  At this point, Covid-19 will likely always infect humans, much like the flu will always infect humans despite yearly vaccinations that are obviously not very effective.  (Quite literally, as I sat here typing that prior sentence, a friend and client phoned to tell me that her already fully vaccinated family now has active Covid infections.  The family doctor prescribed antibiotics which has exactly zero effect on viruses; antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses.)  We will eventually begin to ignore Covid-19 just like we began to ignore the flu after the disastrous 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.  Although we may eventually find a way to kill both the flu and the corona viruses, we are nowhere close to doing that now… it would take an out-of-the-box quantum leap in science to pull it off.  I just read a peer reviewed research paper where it stated that more and more scientists are now suggesting that we may be continually vaccinating and wearing masks and avoiding gatherings for the rest of our lives.  The head of Moderna (on September 17th) stated that we may not require yearly shots and later the same day stated that vaccine immunity appears to only last for a few months so we will need ongoing Moderna shots and then one week later said, quite hopefully, that Moderna will wipe out Covid within the next 12 months.  Possibly someone keeps correcting his viewpoint.  I remember Warren Buffett’s quote:  “Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.”

• Why will it always infect humans?  There was a possibility that it could have been stopped if people had reacted aggressively at the very beginning with a global in-home quarantine and in-home masks for perhaps only a few weeks.  Now, despite any heroic vaccine attempts, it will be next to impossible to ever eliminate Covid-19.  Today it is everywhere and it is continually mutating and migrating in order to assure its survival.   Most viruses are stable double-stranded DNA viruses that do not mutate easily.  DNA viruses include measles, mumps, diphtheria, smallpox, polio; most of the viruses that can infect humans are DNA versions.  Vaccines work well on these DNA viruses because DNA viruses normally do not mutate.  Vaccines work like a lock and key.  But if the lock is changed, the key will no longer work.  The flu and coronaviruses are unstable single-strand RNA viruses that mutate often because they have great difficulty correcting for any errors of reproduction.  You could think of it in these terms: Single strand RNA viruses do not have a back up copy (double strand) to rely on.  If the lock (virus) is altered enough, then it is almost impossible to have a key (vaccine) that continues to fit.

• Do vaccines stop people from getting viruses?  No, Covid-19 can and will still get into your body whether you got a vaccine or not; the theory is that the vaccine (or prior natural immunity) helps you to fight it off quickly and more easily and usually without symptoms.

• Is there anything that worries you about vaccines?  Yes, definitely.  With an ever higher percentage of people getting vaccinated, there is an increasing chance that there is a higher selection pressure on the part of the virus to aggressively mutate in order to alter the spike protein that the new mRNA vaccines are designed to effect.  And if it accomplishes this, then there is also a chance that the new Covid-19 variant starts to exacerbate the Covid-19 infections via a phenomenon known as ‘antibody-dependent-enhancement’ where certain antibodies stick to the virus spikes incorrectly and actually end up contributing to the infection.  This means that the vaccine could end up making the virus much, much more contagious (but not more lethal… the most likely pathway will be for the virus to become less and less deadly regardless of any variation).

• We are now being told that we will need ongoing “boosters” into the future.  If the virus mutates several times per year, then how will the labs know what the future mutations will look like so that they can make a new updated vaccine that will work against any mutation that defeats the mRNA vaccine?  They won’t know what a future version will look like in advance because labs are not psychic.  Right now, a “Covid-booster” is just a third shot of the same thing.  While theoretically it is better than the ‘old style’ vaccine, the new mRNA vaccine (Pfizer & Moderna) for an RNA virus will help until it no longer has any ability to help.  There are a dozen new variants circulating around the globe.  Researchers are suggesting that the new MU-variant coming up from South America (and already in every state in the U.S.) is not stopped at all by the current vaccine that the government is starting to mandate.  The idea behind the mRNA vaccine was that it would give more lasting immunity against a mutating RNA virus since it deals entirely with the ‘spike protein’, but it already appears to do nothing of the sort.

• I was told that if I already had Covid, that I still need the vaccine.  Why, if both produce immunity?  The “vaccine is better” promotion comes from the vaccine manufacturers and from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Dr. Fauci, but the reputable National Institute of Health (NIH) states quite the opposite.  Regardless, the very clear science is that the immunity from receiving the jab or from contracting Covid naturally are exactly the same.  Exactly the same.  However, strong immunity from either method likely lasts for no more than the following 8 months (according to NIH studies).  It is important to note that the vast majority of people that contract Covid will naturally present with zero symptoms, so one could have natural immunity right now without even knowing it, and this could apply to hundreds-of-millions of people across the globe, so this complicates the equation.  I do understand that “natural vs vaccine” is a very difficult choice to make when dealing with something like Covid-19 that has the potential to cause death.  On some deep subconscious level I have to admit that I do wonder what happens if we constantly and endlessly inject ourselves with Covid concoctions, especially in the light that no long-term studies of the effect of the mRNA vaccine on humans has ever been done.  It is simply a fact that we are all mRNA vaccine test subjects.  Yes we are.  A law was pushed through that no vaccine manufacturer (or government agency) can be sued during the next three years (until 2025).  A surprising number of doctors anecdotally report auto-immune patients going from very mild to bad after taking the mRNA vaccines; perhaps 80% of the population is already auto-immune and most common diseases are actually auto-immune illnesses and the (cytokine) tie-in with Covid deaths is clear, extremely important and seldom discussed (more below)… so it is sort of a ‘catch-22’.  I’m sorry to say that the current “scientific” answer to this potential worsening of auto-immune conditions (post-vaccine) is to add high blood pressure drugs to the long list of drugs that the patient is already on.

• It sounds like you are against vaccines?  Absolutely not.  In my opinion, the theory around vaccine use is brilliant and I am NOT saying to avoid the Covid-19 vaccine.  In theory, the mRNA vaccine is great.  Past public backlash has forced the labs to gradually remove some of the worst toxic elements from some of their vaccines, so injecting vaccines has gotten safer with time, but many still contain thimerosal-mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum and/or MSG that can all damage brain & nerve tissue, so there is still work to be done to make them even less toxic.  I’ve studied a lot of Latin and medical terminology and even I can’t pronounce half of the ingredients in today’s vaccines.  And trust me on this, a vaccine really doesn’t need to have mercury in it (mercury causes extreme health problems in almost all organ systems even at very low levels) and the connection between aluminum and Alzheimer’s is very well established (aluminum is a heavy metal when in the human body and it has an affinity for brain tissue… aluminum accumulating in brain tissue is mostly caused by spending a lifetime drinking phosphoric acid loaded soft drinks from aluminum cans and from cooking in aluminum pots).   Anyway, vaccines absolutely do work on DNA viruses, which includes most viruses, and they obviously will work against RNA viruses until the virus mutates beyond the vaccine’s ability to help.  The problem is that once a lab finds a new variant (mutation) that sidesteps the vaccine and does all of the work to get the vaccine up to running speed and delivered to the public and then administered, the virus may have further mutated.  And while the new mRNA vaccine (Pfizer and Moderna) had difficulty in passing any animal studies because it was shown to cause liver & kidney injury in too many test subjects (Johnson & Johnson’s ‘old-style’ vaccine has caused severe but rare nerve damage in some current patients), my personal gut feeling is that these vaccines are relatively safe for the majority of people to inject, which is good since it is now being mandated around much of the globe.  From a risk assessment viewpoint and looking at a world population of almost 9-billion people, one’s current risk of dying from either Covid-19 or from the vaccine are extremely low.

• What is the path of future outbreaks?  All past pandemics involving RNA viruses (if not eradicated in the first few weeks) have eventually moved on to becoming a permanent part of the human experience, but more localized and less widespread and much less lethal; I assume that the same will occur with Covid-19.  Of course the vaccine manufacturers will take credit for it, but it will actually just be the natural progression.  DNA viruses like smallpox, measles and polio remained strong over time (since they do not mutate, they cannot become weaker) and that is why vaccines were so important for these DNA viruses (and we are fortunate that vaccines do work well with non-mutating DNA viruses).  The only DNA virus ever eradicated by vaccines was smallpox.

• Do masks help to stop the spread from one individual to another?  Yes, if they are tight enough to the face.  It is not the thickness, it is the tightness.  Social distancing will also help as will not touching your face with unwashed hands.  Personally, I don’t often wear a mask, but if I were in tight quarters, as on a commercial airplane, I would most certainly wear a mask.  In my opinion, these actions will not eliminate Covid-19 from the planet, it is too late for that.

• How can I cheaply test at home to see if I currently have or have recently already had Covid-19?  On September 21st, Orasure (a great company) announced that they have developed a quick, in home, saliva test for detecting recent antibody production (with the help of $300-million taxpayer dollars, but Orasure will keep the profits).  It will be on the market sooner rather than later.  Their other products are already sold in many pharmacies like CVS (and also sold globally) so there can be a fast and easy release through already established supply lines.

• Does Ivermectin horse dewormer help against Covid-19?  No, Ivermectin is not an anti-viral and it has a list of side effects as long as your arm.  Covid-19 is not a parasite, it is a virus.  But I’ve spent much of my life around horses and it works great in deworming horses and trust me on this, horses must be wormed.  If you’ve ever seen foot long worms as fat around as your finger pass from a horse, you won’t ever forget the sight.

• What are monoclonal antibodies?  These are antibodies cloned in a lab and injected into your body rather than being produced naturally by your body.  This treatment is approved by the FDA and it is currently being promoted by hospital administers.  (I have great respect for nurses… there is a reason why so many nurses refuse treatment of this type when they personally become sick.)  Let me just say this about monoclonal antibodies:  The known side effects of these ‘lab antibodies’ are dizziness, headaches, allergies, diarrhea, constipation, cough, fever, itching, back pain, fatigue, insomnia, anaphylactic shock, autoimmune thyroiditis, hypothyroidism, hepatitis, anemia, decrease in white blood cells, inflamed and swollen mouth, colitis, gastrointestinal perforation, severe destruction of the intestines, internal bleeding, blood clots, heart failure, cancer and death.  In their infinite wisdom, the powers-that-be ordered that this special monoclonal treatment be reserved for those who are the most sick or elderly amongst us.  Why am I cynical about this?  Roughly speaking, for every drug or procedure or device that is approved by the FDA, another previously approved one is pulled from the market because, oops, it actually can permanently and severely injure you or even kill you.  But they just keep on doing it.

• Isn’t the virus as deadly now as it was at the beginning?  No, not even close.  This following chart shows the progression of both ‘cases’ and ‘deaths’ during the three waves that we’ve experienced.  At the beginning, in early 2020, there were few cases but high death numbers and that was not good because it meant that the virus was very deadly.  One year later the case and death numbers were moving in sync, meaning that death numbers as a percentage of total cases had actually dropped.  (Of note, the high early 2021 case numbers accomplished the majority of their drop before vaccines were widely available so vaccines had little to do with the fall in case numbers or deaths.)  More recently, in mid 2021, case numbers jumped much higher again but deaths remained quite LOW which means that deaths as a percentage of cases had dropped significantly.  High case numbers and low death numbers means that the virus has become more contagious but much less lethal.  Since the vast majority of Covid-19 cases present with zero symptoms, the recent gap between high cases and low deaths may be even wider.  This drop in death numbers is good news.  This chart also shows that recent Covid-19 case & death numbers may have peaked and already begun their descent.

Daily Covid-19 death numbers for the U.S are shown via the gyrating dark purple line below and it is shown to be lower than or equal to most other routine sources of human death.  (Chart is courtesy of Statista and it is shown to July 1st of 2021, which is the last date that data is available for all causes of death.)  Covid-19 fatalities spiked slightly higher in August and September of this year, appear to be peaking now, and will likely be back to July levels (below) by sometime before the end of the year.

• What is an auto-immune disease?  [I’ve chosen to hyphenate the word auto-immune in order to emphasize the meaning of the word.  “Auto” means self… you attack yourself.]  Research suggests that 80% of all health problems in the United States (and globally) are actually auto-immune diseases.  An auto-immune disease is where the body’s own immune system attacks its own bodily tissues, often at the person’s weakest genetic link.  The research is absolutely clear; it is caused by your own health choices and there are (seldom used) blood tests that can pin down the cause and the relatively simple cure.  Auto-immune diseases run the gamut:  Alzheimer’s, tinnitus, fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, Parkinson’s, psoriasis, eczema, celiac, vitiligo, thyroiditis, Crohn’s, rheumatoid arthritis (osteoarthritis is not auto-immune, it is ‘wear-and-tear,’ often caused by chronically misaligned bony anatomy or sometimes from overused joints), scleroderma, asthma, etc, etc, etc.  True Functional Medicine practitioners (they can be life changing, but also very rare and difficult to find and many falsely claim the title) are the specialists that deal with this “cause/cure” scenario.  In a world where health has been replaced with pharmaceuticals, these doctors rarely prescribe drugs.  There are 100 commonly recognized auto-immune diseases which means that there are actually around 500.  The odds are that your personal manifesting illness is actually an auto-immune problem; you might have one even if later-stage symptoms or disease processes are not currently presenting.  Some early, pre-diagnosis symptoms:  Stiff?  Injure easily?  Restless sleep?  Itchy skin?  Rash or redness, especially on your face?  Stomach or bowel irritation?  Constipation or chronic loose stools?  Excessive gas production after eating beans?  Chronic phlegm in your throat that is worse at night or in the morning hours?  On-and-off runny nose?  Headaches?  Chronic fatigue (and “Long Covid?)?  Autism that “runs in families”?  Thought process forgetful or not entirely clear?  

• How do auto-immune diseases affect Covid-19 patients?  Auto-immune patients produce too many cytokines as part of their illness.  Obese people also produce too many cytokines, at a 10x greater rate.  Cytokines are sort of like little stupid, non-specific destructive missiles, sent out by the immune system, that are designed to kill anything that might need to be killed plus anything else that ‘gets in the way’ or that is in the general area (like lung tissue).  Covid-19 is a virus that sets up shop in the distal air sacs of the lungs, where you breathe and exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen.  Auto-immune patients (and obese people) send in truly gigantic amounts of these cytokines in an attempt to kill the (inflammation causing) coronaviruses with the unfortunate result that the excessive cytokines end up destroying the air sacs themselves, and then the person cannot breathe.  If you cannot breathe, you die.  The coronavirus usually does not kill the patient, the patient’s own immune system kills them via cytokine overproduction and resultant lung destruction.  Very clear research shows us that it was this excessive cytokine storm that killed almost 50-million people during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.  Between auto-immune conditions and obesity, a lot of people are at risk of over-reacting to a Covid-19 infection.

• Do vaccines stop this excessive cytokine production?  No, not at all.

• Is there any easily available medicine that does temporarily halt the excessive cytokine production?  Yes.  As I started saying 1.5 years ago, Dexamethasone is an anti-cytokine steroid that is common, cheap, relatively safe and extremely effective.  The only side effects for usage of under two weeks are temporary stomach cramps and a temporary irritated state of mind in some rare cases.  When President Trump went to the hospital with Covid-19, he was much worse than the American people were told.  Some very smart doctors there gave him Dexamethasone and he improved so fast that he was released almost immediately.  But your doctor will not automatically give it to you.  Should you be bad enough to have to enter a hospital, you will likely have to request him/her to discuss it with you.  As I type, Pfizer, who makes Dexamethasone, is in the process of relabeling it as a “strong non-vaccine Covid treatment,” but with a much higher price tag (and a different name for the exact same thing).

• Is there anything safe & natural that can be taken as a Covid prophylactic?  Yes.  Natural curcumin supplementation halts excessive cytokine production and it can be taken safely by most people on a daily basis if used as directed.  This is sold everywhere including Amazon, WholeFoods and in most decent supermarkets and health food stores.  I personally take it along with high potency vegan DHA/EPA (Deva brand) and natural D-3 (not D-2!) from vegan sources (NOW brand, taken as directed).  And this may sound too simple to be true, but zinc lozenges sweetened with natural xylitol will often knock out any oncoming viral (or bacterial) respiratory infection if taken immediately before bedtime as soon as any symptoms develop. There is a reason why so many water purifier companies add zinc to their filters and why companies like Tom’s of Maine add xylitol sweetener to their natural anti-microbe mouthwash and toothpaste.  Zinc should only be taken in higher doses when feeling sick because if taken on an ongoing daily basis, it will eventually kill off even the good intestinal bacterial flora.

• Where can I learn more about Functional Medicine?  Most illnesses being self-inflicted auto-immune diseases means that most human diseases are preventable and correctable.  Yes, that’s correct.  Research tells us that humans have the ability to live for 125 years and to be healthy and vibrant and active until the very end, but it takes the proper choices and actions along the way.

If you want to know more than your doctor:  The few textbooks that are available are too difficult for lay people to get through, but there are five easy to read books, all written by Functional Medicine doctors, that the subscribers to this blog might find interesting (please read in this order):

1. The Autoimmune Solution… by Dr. Amy Myers
2. The Autoimmune Fix… by Dr. Tom O’Bryan
3. The Wahls Protocol… by Dr. Terry Wahls (read the first half)
4. The Scientific Approach to Intermittent Fasting… by Dr. Michael Vanderschelden
5. Why Isn’t My Brain Working?… by Dr. Datis Kharrazian

REVIEW… AND CONDENSED SUMMARY FOR LAZY READERS: 

1. Covid-19 is a coronavirus which is a type of mutating RNA virus that is found in mammals with each mammal having their own version, but it can sometimes jump species.  The common cold is also a coronavirus.
2. Although Covid-19 could have been eradicated at the very beginning when it first jumped from bats to humans, at this stage it is likely never going away. 
3. Vaccines & masks will not eradicate Covid-19 from the planet; the mRNA vaccine will help only until the RNA virus mutates beyond the vaccine’s ability to help. 
4. If you have had Covid-19 within the past 8 months, a vaccine is of no additional benefit until 8 months after the date of first contracting the virus (but that won’t matter if every single place that you want to go to and everything that you want to do mandates a continually updated vaccine card). 
5. The death rate is much lower than most people believe, with the vast majority of deaths having occurred during the first wave spike in early 2020. 
6. The risk level is much lower than most people believe; you are currently (or soon will be again) more likely to be killed by your car than by Covid-19. 
7. It is patients with auto-immune diseases that are much more likely to die from Covid-19; auto-immune diseases represent roughly 80% of all global illnesses and if you personally have a manifesting illness, it is likely to be a mislabeled or misunderstood auto-immune condition. 
8. Auto-immune patients (and overweight people) produce too many cytokines. 
9. Immune system cytokines are what actually kills the majority of Covid-19 patients by destroying the breathing sacs (alveoli).  If you can’t breathe, you can’t live. 
10. If you are really sick with Covid-19 and in the hospital, consider asking for Dexamethasone, which is an anti-cytokine drug with few side-effects if taken for no more than two weeks.
11. There are natural preventatives (that help to reduce the overproduction of cytokines) that can be taken as part of a daily health regiment (listed above), but it is important to find out why you are auto-immune in order to fix the cause of the condition.  Merely masking symptoms with drugs allows the auto-immune illness to progress and worsen over time.  If you do not understand this, then picture having a rotting tooth but just taking aspirin so that you do not feel the pain.  The aspirin literally does nothing to fix the actual CAUSE of your pain but it does allow the rot to continue.

BRIEF MARKET SUMMARY:  On September 20th, with the market down almost 900 points, I sent a rushed client Market Update email to clients stating that the market had JUST bottomed and that it would move higher at the end of day and then proceed higher over the next few days to fill the chart gap, sending the S&P-500 to at least 4450.  This was exactly correct.  Even my clients don’t understand how difficult it is to do this.  I used the drop to enter new client money into portfolio positions so that this new money also captured the three day major upside.  Our earlier projection to reach the 4600 area was also exactly correct and I said that the market might then take a pause and become volatile.  Guess what?  Also correct.  I then said that the volatility was likely not over but that the recent bottom was likely in.  We’ll see.  Now I’m saying that the S&P-500 naturally wants to meander up to 4700 by the end of the year (or early in 2022).  I’m not psychic… I’m just open to listening to what MarketCycle’s proprietary system of indicators is trying to tell me.

So, we remain in the early stages of a new multi-year cyclical bull market for stocks (that began in late March of 2020) within the confines of a prolonged (18 year?) secular bull market that began in late October of 2011, peaking in perhaps 2029.  As I keep saying, this is the stock bull market of our lifetimes.  And commodity & gold prices will be the next bull market, peaking in perhaps 2037.

Thank you for reading.  I’m sorry if anyone was offended by the material presented in this article; there certainly are strong opinions out there.

Consider becoming a client.  It does’t cost; it pays.  It’s simple to do and time’s a wastin’.  There is a contact tab on the banner of our website and I reply to all emails same day.

MARKET CYCLE  —  TREND FOLLOWING  —  DUAL MOMENTUM  —  LOW VOLATILITY  —  HEDGE FUND

I recently received this unsolicited and extremely nice email from Warren Buffett.  I feel really privileged to have received it and I felt quite lucky after reading its contents.  This is an exact copy of that email:

“Hi, my name is Warren E. Buffett an American business magnate investor and philanthropist am the most successful investor in the world.  I believe strongly in giving while living’ I had one idea that never changed in my mind?  that you should use your wealth to help people and i have decided to give {$2,500,000.00} Two Million Five Hundred Thousand United Dollars, to randomly selected individual worldwide.  On receipt of this email, you should count yourself as the lucky individual.

Your email address was chosen online while searching at random.  Kindly get back to me at your earliest convenience before i travel to japan for my treatment  ,so I know your email address is valid.Email me.

Thank you for excepting our offer, we are indeed grateful You can Google my name for more information:  Warren Buffet OR You visit my website at Wikipedia.

God bless you and Best Regard.  Mr. Warren E. Buffett Billionaire investor”

Obviously we all know that this wasn’t written by the real Warren Buffett, it was some slob in a coffee shop in some place far off the beaten path searching for a gullible American to exploit.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want it to be true.  Buffett would tell us that our brain latches onto what we want to be true, we anchor to it, and then we proceed onward from that point by searching out confirming information.  We do this in all aspects of our life.  In investing, we latch onto ideas that seem like they should be true and accurate but they are not.  As an example, I had a lot of people tell me that Covid would crash the economy.  The opposite happened.  Our absolute certainty about what is or is not true is always coupled with our uncontrollable emotions.  It can cripple us.

Because we ask the wrong questions, we always get the wrong answers.  Entire respected professions are built on asking the wrong questions.  This applies to relationships, religions, spiritual beliefs, healthcare, dietary choices, our stewardship over the environment, etc.  It baffles me.  This is at the root of all of our problems, only we can’t see that we always ask the wrong questions.  If you think that the world is a mess, this is why.

Markets are counter-intuitive so sometimes even asking the right question is problematic.  Most of our investing ideas (even for professionals) will be wrong and this is why so few stock pickers can beat the S&P-500.  None can do it over any length of time.  Most macro-traders look at global conditions to predict what will happen.  They are usually wrong.  They might ask if we are experiencing inflation concomitant with a panicked Federal Reserve?  If yes, then gold should absolutely go to the moon because it always does under these conditions… only it didn’t.

It took me several decades to put together MarketCycle’s system of indicators.  Indicators can remove emotion from the equation and they can show what is actually happening rather than what we believe should be happening.  Much of that time spent testing was used to eliminate those things that everyone else had falsely found to be true.  MarketCycle’s total system was tested and tested and tested and I repeatedly tried to kill everything in the system.  But like Frankenstein, it lives!

As an example, back in late March of 2020 with the globe still in the pits of deflationary despair over Covid, our inflation indicators said that inflation was about to show up in the economy in a big way.  About a year later, everyone else started to pick up on it.  Now it is the only thing that anyone is talking about.

MarketCycle’s indicators eliminate emotion and guesswork and only show us what is factually and actually happening.  It works.  It allows me to sleep at night.

U.S. taxpayer MONEY continues to flow toward investment MARKETS.  The same applies globally; the world is awash with money.

$5-trillion from the federal government

$4-trillion from the Federal Reserve in direct investment asset purchases

$50-billion to airlines

$1-trillion in PPP gifts to small businesses

Taxpayer rent forgiveness and a moratorium against eviction with taxpayers now footing the past-due payment to landlords

$600 per week ‘non-work’ allowance to just about anyone that wanted it

$300 per child per week

Increased unemployment benefits

Many people got free health insurance via Obamacare

5-million home buyers froze their mortgage payments and used the savings to buy stocks & bonds

Student loan forbearance and forgiveness

All of these many $-trillions listed above did and will rotate toward the markets and the economy.  It will have a lagging effect that will prop up the economy for quite some time to come… perhaps even another 2 full years?

MARKET SUMMARY:  Very early last week I sent out a private client Brief Market Update and stated that we were in for some volatility and we certainly got that all week.  Not too bad since the market gyrated up and down rather than just down.  Any new clients were only partially entered into account positions so that if the market dropped in a meaningful way, certain protective assets would eventually kick in.  We are still in a bull market for stocks and commodities and gold and select bonds.  Volatility never lasts forever, although in the near-term it might persist a bit.  Volatility and pullbacks and corrections are a normal part of all advancing bull markets.  We finally reached our repeatedly stated S&P-500 target of 4500 to 4600 and I now expect that the stock market will likely (eventually) slowly march up the top line of its trend channel, perhaps for another two years before any meaningful correction occurs.  I am actually looking forward to a bigger drop since that is where our client accounts usually make their quickest profits.

Thank you for reading!

Consider becoming a client.  It doesn’t cost, it pays… and time’s a wastin’.  

MARKET CYCLE  —  TREND FOLLOWING  —  DUAL MOMENTUM  —  LOW VOLATILITY  —  HEDGE FUND