The market needs stability before it can leg up strongly. The call for low volatility this week is positive and if it comes true it may start to set such a background. If there is China trade talk breakthroughs then the market should go up even if there is repeat of a looming government shutdown in the making.

The problem stems from a few other things. The left wants to spend until the cows come home, but giant deficits are created by Republicans as well and both are to blame for deficit spending. Likewise, Republican tax cuts are not wise if spending does not drop. The simple fact is that both parties are interested in the pile of money and the deficits that go on top. There is no political will on the left or the right to fight the battle for fiscal restraint and little is being done to make the argument for capitalism even though it is capitalism that is helping the economy right now with the small and medium sized businesses benefiting some from the regulatory rollbacks and the tax cuts.

The role of government is to prevent runaway monopolies, etc. Sadly, the author is right and people are taught this is the inevitable outcome of capitalism. Sadly, this is straight from the handbook of Communism which believed monopolies would end up controlling everything, paying people next to nothing, and destroying everything. This obviously didn't happen and neglects the fact that a health capitalist economy is based on small and medium sized businesses that are constantly evolving and changing. Yes, everything needs some controls and capitalism is not alone. We need to prevent monopolies, however socialism isn't the answer. If you want monopolies socialism is the biggest way to create them, not eradicate them.

Many companies that have declining earnings and sales tend to be overvalued from a technical perspective. The hope of many investors that stick with the company is that things will turn around or that it was transitive due to one reason or another. They are either rewarded for sticking through the downturn or punished as the stock price adapts to its new lowered profile. In most cases just looking at such stocks from a pure numbers valuation is dangerous.

There are a lot of overvalued stocks. I think there are more than just these and many are just because investors have valued the stocks too high rather than them already showing growth and profitability declines.

The big question is, are the banks that are very short gold cutting their short positions substantially?

The small and mid sized businesses in the US are doing well. Although this is not spoken of much it is these companies not the manufacturing sector that is buoying the economy. This is caused by the Republican tax cut and not much else.

I agree that China is looking at a "hard landing" sometime in the future, but disagree it is going to be 2019. They still have time and haven't used every tool available to them yet. Rather they continue on a path towards slower growth and their housing market looks dangerous as does their banking sector. When the bubble is popped it will not look good. The best way to look for the timing of a problem is to watch their currency which will plummet along with their stock market. It is too early to tell when the final collapse will happen until one or the other shows clear signs of extreme strain.

The S&P rally already got a little rest. Now, it doesn't need a rest as much as it needs to broaden. For too long the market has been driven by tech stocks with ever increasing valuations without a major increase in revenue growth or profitability usually required for upward valuation. This was somewhat understandable with low rates and anemic growth, however, this phase of the cycle is now over.

The monetary policy shift won't last long if trade wars continue and prices start rising. There is still things to be concerned about, however, as things look now hopefully government will not get shutdown again and the trade spat cools down. The author is right that the Fed's gradual position stance bodes well for the market and prevents US growth from falling too far too fast.

The market will do fine if the tariff war ends and the rest of the world balances and if we don't end up with closed government yet again. It is remarkable this economy is doing so well given the recent negatives. If we pull out of some of these negatives we can see a nice run.

The rest of the world has been in a mess for quite a while. This is nothing new. If tariff wars end it will improve. China has been slowing but that is not really news either. Hopefully, Europe will get out of its funk and Asia ex-China will rebound.