From retail to "tutes," everyone and their uncle has Lehman Bros and 2008 on their mind. All are still relatively conscious of the Jan - Mar mini-crash and hesitant to buy the dip. Additionally, the media has re-launched anti-Prez news blitz, which has been a bullish signal for stocks since the 2016 election.
These are the signs of a raging bull market.
Unwise to bear stocks at this point
~70% of stocks move in the same direction as the S&P500 on any given day.
If I was masochist looking to maximize pleasure, I'd short over-valued cult stocks with 10X leverage. This reminds one of a quote from a wise man:
"Win or lose, everyone gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money."
Simple induction: If we're currently in a bull market (we are), and 70% of stocks move in tandem with the S&P, then it must be true that shorting stocks carries maximum risk in the current environment.
Corollary: longing stocks carries minimum risk in the current environment.
This is, obviously, irrespective of fundamentals (the analysis of which is virtually useless at these multiples).
I can think of 20 stocks off the top of my head that are insanely overvalued. Shorting even one of those is a highly questionable endeavor.
Bull Market sentiment
Forget the recent non-Russia-Collusion Manafort guilty pleas--consider the effect that the round-the-clock Hurricane coverage alone would have on stocks if we were in a genuine bear market.
Spoos closed green Friday.
New paradigm
At the risk of sounding like a complete moron--it's literally 'different this time.' Why? The Fed opened Pandora's Monetary Box with QE in 2008. "Crossed the Rubicon." All the proverbials.
"Now you's can't leave."
The Fed's response to next recession needs to be the Mother of all QEs. They must outdo themselves and have set the bar quite high.
There's a crap tonne of money in the system waiting to be deployed, and if that money front-runs the Fed's next monetary easing cycle (which will be bigger than QE1-3 etc., spoos 5K doesn't sound crazy. We could literally rally hyperbolic into a new global monetary system. (This is not far fetched.)
The last time monetary system was reconfigured was under Nixon in '71. A time of massive opportunity.
