Stock Indices

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a fabricated number that has little relation to the actual average performance of the stock market as a whole. For sure, it is not industrial in nature, and by no means is it an average. It's like creating an all-star team of the very best-performing companies and broadcasting to the world that this is the average of all companies out there.

Current macro conditions indicate that we are in a sweet spot for equity returns...that global growth is continuing and there is little or no tail risk in the immediate future. It's time to get long equities...but I have this nagging feeling that these market conditions are too good to be true. If you look, there are a number of technical and fundamental clouds on the horizon.

There’s no fear anymore - anywhere - and I’m talking about the type of fear that overwhelms investors – and, in turn, the market. The surest indication of this can be found in the following chart.

Each December we publish a list of investment themes that we feel are critical to the coming year. Below are our expectations for the U.S, Japanese and European stock markets, municipal bonds and gold.

Bubble predictions are headline-grabbing claims that are sure to attract reader/viewership and more than a few worried individuals who will be pushed to act but, like all forecasts, these bubble warnings should be taken with a grain of salt.

While the stock market is the only game in town - for now - stocks will not continue to out perform all other asset classes indefinitely. Eventually either bonds and gold will rally or stocks will crash very hard. It is one, the other, or even more likely a mixture of both.

Whenever the Fed has decided to reduce the extent of their purchases of "agency" debt products, the SP500 also declined in a dramatic way. [As such,]... it makes it extremely important to contemplate a “tapering” off in the rate of growth of Fed assets, or even an outright end to quantitative easing (QE). [Indeed, if you own stocks you may well want the Fed QEternity program to be just that - to eternity - in spite of the inflation that will surely follow.]

I would think that we are probably in the slow build-up to something interesting – a badly overpriced market and bubble conditions. My personal guess is that the U.S. market, especially the non-blue chips, will work its way higher, perhaps by 20% to 30% in the next year or, more likely, two years, with the rest of the world including emerging market equities covering even more ground in at least a partial catch-up.

Unknowingly, with QE Infinity, Bernanke has put in motion a runaway move in the stock market that will end in some kind of crash this summer. The crash will cause Bernanke to double down on QE which will trigger a spike in commodity prices. Let me explain my rationale.

Until recently, I have not used the term "stock market crash". I do not take using this term lightly. It brings with it major repercussions. I am now breaking out this phrase because of the current state of the stock market. This stock market crash will occur within the next six months from today... The markets will fall within a combined day/few days a total of at least 20%. Bookmark this article.