The Heat Gets Turned Up a Notch

The heat has been turned up a notch in the stock market. Despite the historically high valuation of the big indexes like the Dow and the S&P, the market climbed ever higher this past week. Sure we've had some jarring corrections. But buyers step in each time and over the following days push things back up - and then some.

Meanwhile, most stocks have not kept up with the indexes. They've headed lower. Small caps, the transports, the equally-weighted stock index, the VALUG index all diverge. They're down or flat. Such divergences usually serve as warning that things may take a nasty turn on the main indexes. But warning or not, when they keep heading higher, they keep attracting buyers. 

It's how things go in markets.

Flipping over to Precious Metals, studies by Daniel Ammerman show how they historically run up when stocks are in a down trend. But gold and silver - and their cousins - have been disappointing for those looking to build up counter-positions to stocks. Their recent corrections may have found a bottom, but they're taking their sweet time getting off the launching pad, if they're going to head into orbit any time soon.

As for bonds, yet again yields reversed their up trend (although they've backed up a bit this past week). So yet again talk of the end of the historic bond bull market that began 1980-1982 has been premature. If that bond bull is dying, it's obviously getting shots of something from the great Market Doctor to keep it kicking for a bit longer...a bit longer...a bit longer. It's a pattern that's been repeated many times over recent years and one wonders if it will ever end. It will

But, again, that's how things to in markets. You get to the point where you wonder. And if you get give in and place big bets on, let's say, stocks going up forever, or the bond bull never ending, that's exactly when you'll have the life - or at least your money - sucked out of you.

Switching gears from wealth to health, the heat's getting turned up a notch in the "vaccine" push. Despite my pruning of time spent with media that's increasingly functioning as propaganda for some one or other political interest, I do make it a practice to check in to see what's "informing" my fellow Americans. And there it seems what Gerald Celente predicted over a year ago has come to full fruition: "Vax Wars." Yes, that's the term he gave it.

Celente publishes the Trends Journal, and has built a business predicting trends for business clients who want to look down the road and anticipate where they should be putting their money and their muscle. I've learned a thing or two from him over the years. Trends that he predicted have tended to play out accordingly. So when he spoke of Vax Wars, I kept it in mind. And, voilá, I think we've got to say he nailed it again.

After months of trumpets blaring that the vaccines were safe and effective, it seems we've arrived at a crossroads. There's apparently too large a segment of our population that either haven't or are outright refusing to get jabbed - this despite all the trumpeting. So the powers that be have enlisted every able-bodied entity and person to join in and start blowing. But the din now has what sounds like an ominous undertone. Things have switched from cheer-leading to chiding - or worse.

So, yes, a war was brewing and now it seems two sides have dug in and are facing off. The heat has been turned up several notches at this point. Will the US now follow the example of Israel which has apparently imposed a kind of "apartheid" arrangement that restricts the movements of those who haven't taken the shot? Or Britain and France which are going what has been called the "Vaccine Passport" route? Or maybe Australia which has locked down pretty much the whole country again because of spikes in COVID "cases" (whatever that means)?

I'm keeping my antennae up as the rhetoric shapes media messages on both sides of the battle lines. The daunting part of taking it all in (or at least selectively doing so, for the sake of sanity), is determining who and what to believe. If you've already taken a position, it means you're hunkered down on one side of the other. You're part of the war. If you're trying to sort things our without taking a hard stand, you're not hunkered down yet. But you'll likely very soon be subjected to increasing aggression on both sides. 

I'd give the vaccinated army the edge at this point. They've got the big guns - governments, a compliant medical establishment, a corrupted scientific community (read about how grant money drives "studies" - and who grants the most money), big (and other sized) business (demanding employees get vaccinated or get fired), and a complicit media that disgorges what the big guns feed it.

Not saying that's a good thing; just saying it might be the safer bet - if you're the betting type. Personally, I swore of betting a long time ago. I prefer trying to identify a problem or issue, discern the facts best I can and do my best to act according to what's true. The thing is, that's not always the path to an easy, safe or happy destination - especially in time of war.