Goldilocks Stock Market Is Becoming Idyllic Unicorn Utopia

Party hats and noise-makers for everyone!

The major US indices closed the second Friday in January at record levels. Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah!

The most recent stock market maneuverings are enough to make people consider quitting their jobs, as their money invested is making more.

How much more? Well, anybody with $100,000 invested in, say, a Dow index fund, on the last day of trading in 2017 (December 29), is ahead by $4386 as of the close Friday, January 12. That's like making over $2000 a week, or more than $100,000 a year.

Back in the 2006, the heyday of the sub-prime mortgage mania, people in places like San Diego were literally quitting their jobs, simply because their homes had risen in value by so much, sometimes as much as 150-200%. People in tony neighborhoods with $250,000 homes were being offered $500,000, $600,000 and more.

Well, we all know how that turned out, but the point of making money, either in real estate, or stocks, or anything else for that matter, relies largely upon one's entry and exit points.

To say that sometime in January would be a good time to at least trim some of one's stock holdings would not be considered bad advice. However, who would want to give up on a stock market that appears to be heading to the moon, orbiting it and then taking off toward outer space. After the great returns of 2017 - and the eight years prior to that - it's become apparent that "buy and hold" is the preferred strategy.

That makes sense, since the ongoing bull market is the second longest in market history and nudging along toward the longest ever, having begun in 2009, when the Dow bottomed out at 7,278.38 on March 20th. Having already tripled in value, another solid year could push the Dow (and the other averages) to quadrupling levels.

In other words, if you had $100,000 invested in March of 2009, you'd have over $350,000 today, on your way to $400,000. If you had $500,000 back then, you'd be close to $2 million, and if you haven't cashed out and retired already, you're a fool. (Seriously, anybody who can't make $2 million last 30 years is an idiot. It's $66,666 a year, or $1282 a week. That should be more than enough, even if you aren't keeping some of it in bonds at two percent).

So, stocks continue to ramp higher and probably aren't coming down any time soon. Plenty of people are what they call baby boomers and they're retiring in droves, many of them pulling money out of retirement funds. No matter how much these people remove from the market, it won't matter. There will be new buyers lining up to take their places, bid stocks higher, reap profits.

It's really amazing. Next, unicorns and money trees will be abundant.

At the Close, Friday, January 12, 2018:
Dow: 25,803.19, +228.46 (+0.89%)
NASDAQ: 7,261.06, +49.28 (+0.68%)
S&P 500: 2,786.24, +18.68 (+0.67%)
NYSE Composite: 13,294.34, +83.57 (+0.63%)

For the Week:
Dow: +507.32 (+2.01%)
NASDAQ: +124.50 (+1.74%)
S&P 500: +43.09 (1.57%)
NYSE Composite: +191.11 (+1.46%)