It’s the End of the World as We Know It…

…and I feel fine.

Yes, I know. The world is ending for any number of reasons scribbled across any number of headlines.

And I read no fewer than a dozen reports over the long weekend suggesting the new time-frame for that buzzer to go off is somewhere between right now and mid-2018. 

For me it only proves once again what distance folks will go to get a “click.”

The good news just doesn't do it anymore.

I also read a very scary piece this weekend about Silicon Valley, written by one of its own. 

It delved deeply into all of the so-called news we’re seeing of late, suggesting our world is in fact shaped by what we click. 

That’s because one click on bad news and our phone or desktop is fed with more of the same. And so the cycle continues.

Try it for yourself.

In fact, why not start looking for good news stories and click on those instead. 

I bet your headlines change soon thereafter.

We’re right smack dab in the middle of a world driven by self-fulfilling prophecy technology; what we want we get more of.

And it is up to us to understand how this can cut both ways. 

Knowing what’s real and what isn’t used to be a heck of a lot easier than it is today, but it doesn’t change our responsibility for knowing the difference.

Corporate Earnings?

Forward and reported earnings show us that we’re hitting records on all fronts. 

Next quarter should be more of the same.

With inventories tight and sales strong it’s hard to imagine a way we can actually get a recession going...

That said, the human psyche tends to recall painful investing events far more easily than positive ones.

While the 1982 to 2000 US secular bull market run had just one year with a negative S&P 500 return – when the S&P 500 fell just 3% after Saddam Hussein rolled into Kuwait in August 1990 – that eighteen year run seems a long way from everyone’s memories…

…as is the span from 2002 to 2007, and strangely enough the current run that began in 2009 (and then again in 2013 depending on your perspective).

If this is the end of the world then we might want to start praying for more just like it.