Transition

What looks like chaotic, irrational, and choppy stock market action is actually a process of market transition to the new reality of higher U.S. interest rates, a strong dollar, and faster growth.  Investors are trying to sort out winners and losers in the new reality and are shifting money around trying to figure it out.  This process unnerves some so they retreat to the sidelines, hoping time will produce a clearer picture.

There are always negatives, and pessimists can rattle off a long list from geopolitical concerns, to worries about the international financial system, and on to predictions of peaks in valuations.  The plus side is marked by continuing economic growth in the U.S. and gathering strength in Europe and some emerging markets.  Central banks around the world are either pursuing easy money policies or, as in Europe and Japan, actually printing money and throwing it at businesses.  We will get through this uncertain period.  The environment is far more good than it is bad.

Stay steady, my friends.

the Lonely Bull