Time Magazine had an interesting take on the economy:
“The US economy remains almost comatose. The slump already ranks as the longest period of sustained weakness since the Depression. The economy is staggering under many “structural” burdens, as opposed to familiar “cyclical” problems. The structural faults represent once-in-a-lifetime dislocations that will take years to work out. Among them: the job drought; the debt hangover; the banking collapse; the real estate depression; the health care cost explosion and the runaway federal deficit.”
Does that sound about right, covering the current situation? This quote is from the September 1992 issue.
What happened next? The U.S. economy, and stocks boomed for 8 years, until 2000, and then soared higher after a short recession in 2002.
Right now the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) most recent poll, shows only 21% of respondents were “bullish.”
Jason Goepfert of SentimenTrader has found that, in the last 23 years, when individual investors have been this “non-bullish,” stocks go up… One month after a reading this low or lower, stocks were higher 79% of the time. And stocks were higher 98% of the time three months later.
Even motivational guru Tony Robbins is bearish on the market and has released a video essentially saying “sell everything”.
What does all this mean?
It means stocks will probably make new highs in the next few months!