"Microsoft accounts for 28% of the S&P’s gains this year, Apple is 15%, Amazon 13%, and Google 11%." How can this possibly end well?
It won't, but the path of least resistance and piling in even today might yet again prove to have been a winning strategy towards the end of the year. Disclaimer: I still stay cautious personally (too cautious as it's been proven over and over). Dozu is my hero.
That's the thing, everyone and their mother expect a fall/crash/crisis, so betting on the downside becomes very crowded. Path to rationality is a very resistant process. Because it FEELS hugely asymmetric environment then "old school thinking" traders use small stops and big take profit orders and, what do you know, it keeps on hitting your stops until there's nothing left in your account. Thanks to the modern sophisticated pricing models across the board with trade combos that include thousands of legs, the name of the game becomes actually betting on the LOWEST probability outcomes by the smart money. The environment has nothing to do with fundamentals and, as time goes on, it will be less so. You really think that massive buying leads to higher prices ?
I believed it was Paul Tudor Jones that started the classes he teach with a drawing. It was an uptrend that was way up. Then he asked everyone what they are going to do: buy or sell? The he said: If you choose not buying you will have a very hard time making money in the markets.
Agree with rates near zero and going lower plus all QE, we are in uncharted territory. That being said, how many times have we all heard, this time is different. Yes, history does not repeat but it rhymes.
Sure, declining rates and QE are repricing the overall yield on investments across the board which makes the earnings yield also go lower (thus higher stock prices). This time is different in what ? That we won't see a decline in stock prices ? That's not what i hear. All i hear is that everyone is waiting for a crash so they can take their saved money from under the mattresses and go out to buy real estate and stocks...so they wait and wait and wait...