On news: An old, misleading, video may be the most plausible trigger for a bad day for the market, but I think it's more accurate to say the cause is the guessing-game of interpreting the effect of any info, and the effects of effects, and so on. I think nearly all reporting on daily fluctuations is a search for a story that feels right, and I think the weirdness of the stories or the size of the reaction doesn't shed light on the health or durability of any long term trends. I am skeptical of believing in the market's rationality even while it looks like it's rational. That's my interpretation of it. A relationship between daily market news and anything would be hard to prove or disprove in any meaningful way. On time until a correction/recession/meltdown: I am not making a confident prediction that there is 2 years left moving up, just that I don't think a big correction is immanent. I think really slow growth or flat over the next couple years is more likely than big growth or a crash. I don't see much of the "irrational exuberance" that I would expect in the lead up to a large correction. There are a lot (A) who seem overconfident that the stock market will preform well, a lot (B) who are trying weird things to get a good return, and a lot (C) who are sure it is about to crash. When someone in group B finds a silver bullet and group A starts to join in on the wonderful new thing, I'll be scared and join group C. I hope I will anyway. Market breadth - was under the impression that market breadth was in a pretty boring range, but while trying to double check that I found a lot of conflicting info, I'll update on that when I get time to look more deeply. Debt & Housing Some regions are ripe for a big drop in housing prices, but I don't believe that will have much affect outside of those regions because: There is less investment money riding on mortgages because rates have dropped, so the financial effects of a housing drop are smaller. A broad drop in housing is less likely because the delinquency rate is lower and the housing debt service load is lower (because of lower rates). Some of the warning signs you see look like unimportant noise to me. And without the warning signs, I think slow overall growth is likely, with some small corrections and rallies along the way. What aspect of market behavior are you seeing right now that indicates there's another 2 years of runway on this bull market? What tea leaves are you reading? Because history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes and apparently I'm not seeing what you're seeing.
Really, our point of contention is about market cycles and their causes. We both agree on the guessing game, but I'm arguing that the guesses get wilder when the market gets more chaotic. You don't see much "irrational exuberance" but it's possible you're not seeing what I'm seeing. You don't think a broad drop in housing is lower - yet the bankruptcy laws that led to it the first time (harder to discharge debt through bankruptcy) remain and now, the bulk of the workforce is dealing with student loan debt. So really, it comes down to what we think is important... and you're right - I think this stuff is important.
