Stock market trend for the summer?

Question

In most years, there's a summer rally (bullish) which ends in October.

In most election years, the economy gets a lift.

This may be the exception. Is the summer generally going to trend up or down? And, why?

Are there safe or safer areas like coal or China?

Answer 1

CAN THE  PROTHONOTARY  DAYLONG IT'S VESICANT AS THE HIGH OIL PRICING MIDRIB THE ECONOMY INTO IT'S SPRAWLING AS STIMULATION IS EVEN HARD TOO COME BY.    YES WE WILL STIR THE ECONOMY INTO IT'S PEAK OF CHINA,COAL STOCK, HAVE THE COMPANY FELL!

Answer 2

Looks like the stock market is going to chop this summer.

It is currently vibrating at 8 weeks up, 8 weeks down.

This week ENDS the 8 weeks down and we start with the 8 weeks up for the next cycle.

P.S. The raging bull market of the late 90's are history (for a while)

Answer 3

Ah, drat, my crystal ball is broken.

The market is a moment when people make economic decisions. It is a mix of trends and flurry of thoughts acted out with money.

If I don't get to something concrete quick then I won't be any better at explaining than Bobo was.

If you have ever watched young children play soccor, bunch ball we used to call it, they all want to bunch up around the ball, wherever that is. The market is similar. We see fads play out and the "flavor of the month" kinds of activity going on. Often it is because that is what everyone else is doing, looking at the same thing (ball in the previous example) and are kicking up or down until they find something else to interest them.

I think the economy was stronger than we gave it credit, which is good, but the current irrationality with oil has lifted the costs of transportation and products (plastics and lubricants also often come from oil) will be putting an enormous damper on the economy.

Politics will have a play meanwhile. A sizeable part of society wants a distinctly more socialist direction. That increases government control and raises government costs. Since government already spends so much more than it takes in, some mathematically-challenged minds say that means taxes need to go up. Some pragmatically-minded souls need to remind them that lower taxes have increased government revenues, so the real problem was spending, not taxes. Socialist-minded people distrust private control over decision-making so leaving people with too much money and freedom to use it is inherently dangerous. Strangely enough, both major candidates, from both major parties, are both leaning in this direction.

That means that as the candidates crystalize their positions, IF business realizes that it means tighter controls and confiscatory tax and fees policies, then they will have to move assets and operations abroad. This would be difficult, in a major way, dampening our economy.

Just as it is far easier for oil companies to drill in difficult and dangerous lands than it is to drill for oil here in the U.S. where it would be comfortable and safe if not for environmental adversaries, it is likewise easier to make things abroad, as has been abundantly made clear over the last several decades. Major corporations have dismantled American industrial capacity because abroad they don't have to abide with the same kinds of required environmental standards, safety standards, work standards, minimum pay standards, retirement and benefit standards that have been mandated here.

Yet there will be those who discover ways to make home produced services (rarely product) sufficiently palatible to the economic base that remains. In short, no matter who wins the White House, this country is economically a bag with holes. People with money are moving out, while many, many more are sneaking in, often the ones coming in have neither skills nor financial resources. Think about it, we've trashed tens of millions of our children (process called abortion), hosed down our social system with sewer water (look again at our "entertainments"), dumbed down our education so that foreign students working in another language outperform our own students even with the diminished instructional load and lowered expectations.

Any "lift" will be extremely short-term. The longer term, however, is depending on what those of us who remain do with the country. Right now, I'm counting the next four years as Dismal, with a capital D.