We are looking at an election year and a year following after. The general trend tends to be no major crash in election years which is why I think the outlook seems positive. With low inflation, the threat of a major oil shock from a mid-east war is also more subdued than one may expect.

Although anything can happen, this year is favored to be on the bulls side regardless of who wins the election.

The spike is a knee jerk reaction to the US strike. We will have to see how things are dealt with from here on. I do agree things in the mid-east are getting more dicey, however, they have been more worrisome for some time already. Look for oil prices to stay elevated for a while regardless of what happens.

Indeed there is a lot of rubber meeting the road. Tesla producing in China is a game changer.

Even if the economy is strong housing is set for a downturn or at least to drastically under perform as the baby boomers retire. Thus it can't be used at a strong market indicator. The only thing to hold it up is immigration which is becoming less and less attractive for a variety of reasons.

Despite this, there is decent growth in many large cap companies and the economy will grow and change accordingly. Tech will play a role as well as advances in medicine and robotics. What was a sure win in the past may not be as US global brands are under new competition from big store brands as well as European and Asian products in the wake of the trade wars.

The US will survive, but it will be vastly different in next 10 to 20 years. Look for companies that will adapt and grow in the future. Many old models will slowly die out and Real Estate REITs although now finally becoming all the rage may be the next big losers. There is a reason financial and banks are minting them as fast as possible like they did with subprime loans before the last downturn. It may be to give these assets to suckers as they find a way to get them off their books.

This brings up a few issues about bitcoin that draws concerns. 1st is illegal use of the currency which in China's case can be used to shift money around its strict and artificial rules on assets going out of the country. The second issue is ridiculous waste of assets in this case electricity the current bitcoin systems use. And the 3rd is the fact that North Korea and other countries are mining and using it to undermine global currency controls and finance who knows what.

It seems clear that morality goes out the door along with human rights as well as government control. Sure it may undermine state mandated currency controls which support a more open and free market, however, the fact China and N. Korea are mining it heavily counters the fact that it harms state run governments and supports the fact that it can and is used for nefarious things by states like North Korea, and that China will be working to make a currency with tighter controls using it rather than with less over time. There will be a day when you will dream of having untrackable paper money over having everything you have trackable and controlled by a state digital monetary system (if you also don't have a 666 stamped on you to use it).

We all should pay special attention to how money is made and used in the future. Your life as well as your family's life may depend on it someday.

The Federal Reserve has been too lenient on Presidents through out this cycle and should have prevented zirp, QE, etc long ago. That said, their continuation of such bead long term policies not only risk weakness if we do fall into a recession but also leads to greater and greater instability. Given this, the Federal reserve has been acting more on the President's side as usual than against it.

Simply put, they will not take away the punch bowl until they have to. Sadly it seems obvious they won't have to until we are already in a recession and sadly will be too close to zirp to have traditional monetary policy help us get out of it as well as still having QE on the table. Terrible. Our monetary system needs a rewriting to prevent such poor behavior before it bankrupts the US. The government deficit is already a bad enough liability to us.

Next year the market could move up higher although long term we are due for a correction. The only thing that i would bet on for next year is increased volatility as the Presidential election gets underway.

The US markets look good going into the holiday season and the dollar and the market look like they are taking the slower growth in stride. Next year the effects of the Presidential election are likely to cause the market to move one way or another. Be careful next year, but not too careful. The market could do a nice jump depending on how things go. I can see it jumping if a Republican or a Democrat wins the Presidency, especially if a moderate candidate wins which would insure more political stability than we have had for a while. It is too bad the Republicans didn't have a runoff. Both parties need to move towards the middle.

The energy sector is a good place to be safe in this market, although I don't think it will make you rich which is why so many have fled this market. If there is too much of a buying frenzy it will only encourage weak players to issue more stock and overspend which will lead to more overproduction. This is why it is more a gradual play than a potential grand slam.

I'd avoid bonds although I don't see rates moving up unless Trump really ramps up the tariffs which is bad for our economy and our companies that export as well. Even so, the slowing growth of the economy would probably slow the economy so much demand would fall and prices would come into balance quickly anyhow.

The low rates are a sign of our economic weakness which many often fail to realize. So when people jump up and down and say how great the economy is, give them a big frown. It is not great. That is why you can't get decent returns on your money without taking big risks anymore.