In early 2009 almost every small cap stock was priced for imminent bankruptcy and the most fundamentally sound large caps had P/E ratios under 10. Many small caps were trading well below net assets. It was an easy time for any objective investor to be bullish. After rallying hard for 14 months after March 2009's low and nearly doubling, May 2010's "flash crash" convinced me stocks had lost their luster and had gone too far too fast. August 2011 once again felt like the beginning of the end of Wall Street's central bank induced dead cat bounce, but the cannons were reloaded and additional easing measures paved the way for the new highs investors, traders, 401k holders and the like bask in today.

The stock market's resiliency has been tested and proven over and over since the "panic of '08." Nuclear meltdowns, Russian invasions, Middle East demolition derbies and even a Brexit haven't done sustainable damage to the global economy, according to today's share prices. Revenues may be down, profit margins declining indefinitely, innovation less than apparent, but central banks do as they please and it certainly pleases them to please investment banks and entitled consumers. The analogy has been made countless times in recent years that QE is like an addictive drug, creating euphoria at first and providing less and less satisfaction through continued use. Well, guess what Mr. Global Economy? You're not producing much and you require more (liquidity) injections than the cumulative cast Dr. Drew has treated on Celebrity Rehab.

Whether or not interest rates are ever raised in the United States, Japan, Europe or elsewhere only affects those looking to profit from shorting stocks. What is crystal clear is that gold and silver will continue to outperform global stock indices, as they have since economies stopped growing organically over a decade ago. By cherry picking gold and silver's highs made in 2011 stock junkies can feel like outperformers, but that's what addicts do; justify addicted behavior at all costs. Gold and silver are sound forms of money benefiting from a deflationary economic environment. Each is up approximately 350% from where they traded for much of the 1990s and early 2000s.

After testing $20 silver sold off about 10% recently, most of which has been made back in the first two days of September. Gold hasn't really budged, which reinforces the typical anti-gold thinking of "it produces nothing, yields nothing, blah blah blah." Again, genuine growth is non-existent so an asset with tightly constrained supply and historically proven value should be highly regarded as the currency supply and human population continues to grow. Companies with rising share prices face declining margins and stagnant revenues, P/E expansion is not an investment thesis I see as sustainable.

At the current time no fundamental, technical or other analyst in their right mind (Jesse Felder, a personal favorite, is the only one who comes to mind) is suggesting to short stocks. Despite indices near all time highs intraday action has been volatile, and neutral at best, suggesting there is more selling than Wall Street Journal readers expect. I think it's time to go short. More certainly, it's time to own precious metals instead of stocks.