The Inevitable Year-End Melt-Up

Is a melt-up for US stocks into the end of the year inevitable? Will benchmark-chasing by the under-invested “professionals” push us into the 16,000’s on the Dow and the 1800’s on the S&P?

Even the permabears like Hussman – while still predicting a crash eventually – concede that a continued run-up is more likely than anything else over the next few weeks.

After six straight weeks of gains for the market, this ripping rally into New Years and possibly beyond has now become the majority view. What a long way we’ve come, from both a price and a sentiment standpoint.

Here’s the New York Times:

“I think there is a general expectation that the market is going to continue to rally for the rest of the year,” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial, based in Waltham, Mass. “Retail investors are starting to move back in, and I think that’s providing a fair amount of support.”

Toward the end of the year, fund managers who are trailing their benchmarks may help bolster stocks as they chase performance.

“I think it’s going to be a slow grind up,” said Dan Veru, chief investment officer at Palisade Capital Management, adding that the only thing “that can derail this is some exogenous macroeconomic event that comes out of nowhere.”

In 2013, volatility has been almost non-existent and all ten S&P sectors are up double-digits percentage-wise for the first time since 1995. The gains have been incredibly easy to come by this year  – provided you were listening to the right people and not getting chopped up to pieces by make-believe signals and indicators.

But I’m not so sure the end of the year can be quite as inevitable as the consensus now expects. It’s almost never that simple…

Source:

Dow and S.&P. Gain for a Sixth Week (NYT)