Over the four-plus-year history of kortsessions.com, I’ve often pointed out how totally disrespected and unloved the current eight-year-old bull market (four-year-old secular bull market) has been — ” … there’s no joy in Mudville ..” 7-31-16, “Born under a Bad Sign” 2-28-14. The lack of attention paid to its progress over the last two weeks as the Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ have all marched to new all-time highs has blown me away. Some of this can be attributed to mega-hurricanes Harvey and Irma and the disasters wrecked upon Houston and Florida. When these horrific weather events were not front-and-center in our psyches, the craziness in Washington was always there to breed fear and uncertainty.
And, of course, the media still cannot seem to get its arms around why it should be more positive about the market and the economy. They (the likes of CNBC) continue to lay more bricks in the “wall of worry.” This was CNBC’s (“The Closing bell”) ebullient reaction to new all-time-high closes in the Dow Jones Industrial average and S&P 500 Friday, September 15 (S&P closes at record).
I loved the comment in the above-linked video by portfolio manager, Cassandra Torolan, “This has been a very challenging year for professional investors. Your gut tells you this should not be happening and yet it is.” You betcha … because Cassandra many professional investors and pundits have been confused and fighting this market all the way up.
We are not confused because we have seen this all before
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We saw this in 1982 at the beginning of the last secular bull market. Absolutely no one believed it. Potential financial and geopolitical problems surrounded us, plus a 20% prime interest rate. During that time Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates ($160 billion assets under management), one of the worlds largest hedge funds was absolutely certain we were about to go off the cliff. “In 1982 Dalio predicted that the global economy was headed for a depression and traded accordingly. As a result “Ray Dalio went broke and nearly shut down Bridgewater before turning into the biggest hedge fund ever.” The Dow was about 1050 when it broke out in 1982 and Dalio was part of a broader consensus that there was no way the market could go up. Friday September 15, 2017 we closed at 22,268 and the consensus is this should not be happening.
Again, I am absolutely blown away by the total lack of enthusiasm and respect investors have for this market. I am also heartened by it because long-term secular market tops do not normally emanate from this type of sentiment backdrop.
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