goodbye, again.

That is literally always the sign of someone who has lost a debate. Adios!

The market will keep going higher until all the naysayers like the OP throw in the towel and buy back in. So OP do the board a favor and let us know when you do jump back in.

Darn it. I was just starting to warm up to him.

long WDC, CYTK and GGAL this week, weirdly enough I have not lost my life's savings yet. Have shorted the Russell in that same period, and will try to learn a bit more about SPY puts to eventually have another way to do it. But so far not being in cash has been more +EV for me this year than being in cash.

Your only guarantees investing....The power of compunding interest, time, asset allocation, and savings rate. Perform these well and you should have a fine financial future.
Took me a while to accept these for my own retirement accounts but its simply the answer when it comes to trying to digest all these contrarian indicators, macro trends, stats, etc..,.

Only thing that gives me a feeling of a top is my buddies telling me they're buying fb, tsla, aapl, because of the awesome market news they see on tv. Thats when your top is in place.

Dont forget that after the crash they will be dismissed as those who predicted 100 of the last 2 crashes.

dont really get long wdc here. and I was a huge wdc bull.

So unkind! It should just be pointed out that they only make Type I errors 100% of the time when there is no crash and never make any Type II errors.

Of course, what happens in real life is that whichever one of them happens to predict the most recent crash is held up as a genius.

Fair point, at least until the next boom is well underway.

That is about it +1.

This is certainly one of the reasons why I'm building a short position alongside a few longs:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...-is-spent.html

Individual investors are plowing money back into the U.S. stock market just as professional strategists say gains for this year are over. About $100 billion has been added to equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the past year, 10 times more than the previous 12 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the Investment Company Institute.

This is certainly a valid idea, there has always been a somewhat historical correlation between main street's entrance and wall street's exit of the markets but there's a lot of factors still at play here. If earnings keep the beat rolling over the next few weeks it seems both main street and wall street will keep on buying which will put a further continued squeeze on bears.

If historical trend is followed then downswong has to happen by 2018. So am calling a market crash sometime between now and 2018.

All kidding aside current valuations on most things make me very uncomfortable. I have no idea how far this thing will go, but I'm not looking forward to the ride down

Just want to make clear, thats upto and including 2018.

Why not make it so you can profit on the way down?

I think there is a greater chance we see a flat and choppy move sideways or a minor correction of 5-10% than a huge move down, assuming no special factors are moved into the market. It is possible for things such as say, historical P/E, to "catch up" to the overall market without anything moving lower. A good reason to believe this is the most likely scenario, is that despite the S&P and dow jones making all time highs, the nasdaq still has quite a ways to go to even reach its 14 year old bubble all time highs. Of course that doesn't account for inflation for these but you get the idea. I just don't see a year of say -25% or even -15% happening for a long time.

Define "long time" ?

Sentiment interests me.

Again barring any significant geopolitical or macroeconomic events that severely impact the markets, "black swan events," I'd say over the course of the next decade.

So basically no one knows.

Im interested in exactly how one could either hedge or make money if a correction does happen.

you buy puts on the index.

That's what I'm gearing up to do. It was that or puts on things that have run up even more (TSLA?). From what I've looked at, my biggest challenge would be a sideways market where my puts become worthless while my portfolio makes zero gains. There are some calculators around to help size your puts based on your portfolio.

Iron condors can be used if you're also worried about sideways market actions. I just don't get why you're so worried about everything and even more that you would want to pay premiums to insure your portfolio when you can just reduce the size of your positions. I'd much rather sell covered calls on a 100% long portfolio than go and buy puts hoping they expire worthless. Worrying about how far down things can go and worrying about the market going sideways all make it seem like you feel like you should be invested in the market, but somehow you don't actually want to be an investor.

Like I would tell anyone in this state of mind, aside from the covered call income, use dividends and portfolio gains to take just the profits off at the end of each month or just after ex-div date on certain names depending on what you're sitting on. At least with this you can sleep better knowing you have a growing stockpile of dry powder to buy any 10%+ correction that comes along.

makes sense