BSDe While I'm long now, I would NEVER recommend initiating a long position in the current market predicament.

Isn't that why we call this "Mechanical Investing" and not "Seat o' the Pants" investing? Systems, indicators, data based on historical correlations are supposed to override gut feelings and how things appear. If it's a false signal getting out is also built in before any real harm can get done.

The time to buy the major indexes is when there is blood in the streets which is starting to clear, but not now.

Sounds like Oliver Wendell Douglas's Paean to the American Investor. The moment hoped for can take years or even half a generation to happen. Can we live on a money market fund in the mean time? We are nowhere near blood in the streets and I don't see it anywhere out there. Thus far the market and indeed the economy have held up almost recalcitrantly through two years of inflation and incessant talk about some sort of recession just around the corner. Where is it? I see no mass layoffs. Just some laugh-filled stories about execs and some tech "laborers" getting axed.(It's about time, chumps. Bienvenidas a la mundo real) Sans unemployment that matters (and at the current 3.7% it'll be a while) there won't be any recession except on paper.

Next June's Federal debt ceiling showdown could actually cause some problems for the stock market. Like Covid. Remember that? Lasted, what about 8 weeks, then the 35% crash didn't even show up in people's budgets anymore. Oh, and it will dovetail nicely with the "Sell in May Then Go Away" season. Will anyone notice?

I really hate to sound so rosy. No, that's not a typo, hah hah, but I am beginning to think we've been had.

To save some trouble: Yes, I know there's always the potential for exogenous events to tip the boat but as someone once said "Always they will be with you." Internal affairs, Putin affairs, etc etc.