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The market roared today off of the news that QE injection will be in the market shortly. Looking at the upper chart cluster row 1, today's move broke us out of the 2 week ceiling the S&P had run up against and barely got above its upper black line of its ascension channel. It will be interesting to see if the market turns vertical here or if it pulls back into the ascension channel as it did 9-22 and 10-14. If we actually break out of this already steep ascension channel into an even steeper one we might be seeing the beginning of a new stock market bubble. The US economy has continued to be strong over the years by going from one bubble to another to another. We had the gold bubble in the late '80s, the stock market bubble in the '90s, real estate bubble from 2000 to 2006 and personal credit bubble from 2005 to 20008. There has been lots of discussion on the internet as to where we will have our next bubble as it's widely viewed that we must have another one to continue borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. As recently as a couple of months ago, the whole world was beginning to think the bond market might be the next bubble, but it is apparent that Bernanke firmly believes that the key to a strong economy is high stock prices. A new stock market bubble would be like the tail wagging the dog in that the economic outlook for the next 6 months is widely viewed as deteriorating but the stock market is roaring. The stock market has always been a leading indicator of what's to come in the economy 6 mos from now. We may be about to see the biggest divergence between the stock market and the economy that has ever taken place. It's apparent Bernanke believes that instead of a strong economy producing a strong stock market, we are going to see if a strong stock market can produce a strong economy.
Alan
