Richard’s Comments

One question I am frequently asked is, "How do we know when a bull market is topping out?"

First, we must determine which sentiment phase the market is in. Normally, the stock market will only top out when it is in the speculative or third sentiment phase.

Strangely, most market analysts - almost all of whom are considerably younger than I am – are not acquainted with the sentiment phases of a bull market.

By Benjamin J. Butler

It’s been an interesting week. Despite being in between national holidays, I managed to have chats with a few different people from a virtual reality expert to an advisor to a person knowledgable about Chinese financial institutions.

I will try and keep it simple.

By Jon S. Strebler

We read this kind of silliness when the stock market is really bullish, especially during the third psychological phase of a bull market. During that phase, stocks have discounted the likely impact of positives acting upon stock prices, and then take it further by predicting favorable developments that aren’t so likely – along with ignoring unfavorable things that eventually do happen. Thus, the third phase of a bull market is a speculative one, when stocks move higher in nearly parabolic fashion, to prices that are unjustified and unsustainable. 

By Matthew Kerkhoff

Last month we introduced a new series on options. The goal of this series is to provide a basic overview on how options can be used to help protect and manage a portfolio.

In the first article we discussed exactly what calls and puts are, and went over some of the vocabulary associated with options. If you missed it, click here to read that article first.

Today we’re going to explore calls and puts in more detail, and walk through examples of buying and selling a call option. The goal here is to provide a blueprint of how call and put options work, before we begin to apply them to specific strategies.

Richard's Comments

Nothing created by the mind of man has ever equaled the stock market in terms of its sheer ability to frustrate people. Why is this? The answer is that the stock market frustrates because millions of traders and investors across the face of the US and the world are all trying to take money out of the market.

By Benjamin J. Butler

Mt. Palgon, South Korea

A Time of Great Innovation

I had a wonderful, but tiring, day. I was up at the crack of dawn to do a webinar and also to speak with a fellow futurist in Washington DC, did several hours of research and admin, and I still managed to do my daily mountain climb. It’s very easy to beat oneself up for what you haven't done each day, but I think it’s healthy to just feel gratitude for what one has achieve. There is something powerful about gratitude.