Here is one guy that gets it. Brian Belski at BMO Capital Markets has this to say:
"We believe performance patterns alone are not enough to justify directional market calls," he writes. Almost all bull market corrections are triggered by a Fed rate hike or a spike in oil prices, and both of these conditions are "nonexistent in the current environment."
"Instead, investors should consider the macro and fundamental backdrop along with risk-taking levels to determine whether or not the performance is justified. From our perspective, the data simply do not support the correction talk and we remain committed to our optimistic market outlook through year-end and into 2014. As such, we believe those investors waiting to “buy on the dip” are likely to be disappointed."
I'll leave the debate about the causes for major corrections, whether Fed related, oil related, jobs related or government related up to the macro specialists to argue. Belski sees macro threats as being "nonexistent" from his perspective. He may be right.
I want to add one more facet that I don't hear mentioned very often. What if instead of the traditional thinking that says this bull market started in 2009 and has reached maturity after a near five year run, this bull market is actually in year one? What if the technical progress we have made in 2013 is actually the real kick-off to this bull market, with the move up to 2012 simply being further probing of the decade long range faced by the S&P and Dow?
This has been something I have been reminding readers of on a fairly consistent basis, but the traditional thinkers on Wall Street that attempt to impress with consensus driven projections that have no relevancy to an investors bottom-line will always get this type of bull market wrong. Not sometimes. Always.
They will always be too conservative. They will always become pessimistic early. They will always cite valuation, sentiment and earnings as a reason to abandon the trend towards prosperity that the market is only too happy to share. It is simply too dynamic a situation to be judged by a traditionalist. It's like bringing a butter knife to a fight with a hyper-advanced group of space aliens. The butter knife just can't keep up with the dynamics that surround it.
The plague of Wall Street as it stands currently is that they have the start of this bull market all wrong. If they cannot judge the start, how can we expect them to be able to judge the end accurately?
