Is the market heading for a first quarter correction ? Poll/Discussion

Lets consider as a forum, this topic, we all are here to win, lets share our sentiments with each other
Interestingly during the roaring 20's of the past century, the world saw an economic high, in which underlying economic indicators were mainly ignored. People do not complain when they are making money, the wise investor or trader knows that when people are ambitious be careful. What happened to peoples fear of the domino effect of other debt riddled states? The prime minister of russia warns of a "deep recession" in 2015. Japan is deep in recession as well.

Also according to bloomberg news, the Jerome Levy forecasting center sees a 65% chance of a recession in 2015. Quote

David Levy the current chairman of the Jerome Levy forecasting center: "Clearly the direction of most of the recent global economic news suggest movement toward a 2015 downturn" end quote.

Why is this forecasting center any different than the others that may say the complete opposite? Such as Morgan Stanley who predicts a longer run for the market.



They most definitely have weight in words since their founder called the 1929 Great Stock Market Crash. He wisely sold his stocks when he saw indicators that pointed to an unsound market.

Personally I do not think one forecaster knows any more than another. I'm sure that for every person forecasting a downturn for 2015 I can find one that predicted a downturn for 2014.

I do think that most of the risk is to the downside for the near future...meaning I feel more comfortable shorting S/P stocks than I do going long any of them that are at or near all time highs.

I am still new and am only paper trading, but I have been paying special attention to trying to learn business cycles and here is my best guess:

The FOMC is preparing to increase interest rates in 2015. They have been keeping them by near zero for the past six years to help aid recovery from the last recession. The fact that they are ready to return policy to a state of “normalcy” as they put it shows the economy is likely to stay strong for at least another year or two. I voted “Yes” on the poll though because of the low cost of oil, and the very bullish behavior of the market this month, as well as the coming institution of FOMC’s interest rate hike, do have me a little suspect of next year’s first quarter, and a pull-back makes sense to me.

I am also curious as to how Japan and Russia will affect the global economy and markets, but I’m still too inexperienced to really understand what affect they may or may not have. I can’t imagine FOMEC raising rates if they expected them to have a major impact though. Unless of course, they have just kept them too low for too long, and leaving them low would cause concern that the economy was in fact not getting better, but I don’t think this is true.

Also, a century has passed since the great depression. At about that same time Hasbro was opening its doors selling textile remnants. The Jerome Levy that existed then, is not necessarily the Jerome Levy that exists today.

Anyone who payed attention to my post early this morning hours before the opening bell, would have been safe from this market pullback

I highly recommend reading this article regarding the 2015 market, Bill Gross is calling an end to the bull market. Serious stuff.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bi....link=MW_Nav_FP
http://www.QDRV.com

You get a few thousand people that hop on board with the "bull market is over" idea and it will be over for sure. You can talk up a lot of stuff. Just look at the Y2K do you remember that. I have 5 dams within a radius of 50 miles from me and we had people stocking up on water here in 50 gallon drums.