“Please put your brain under the seat in front of you.”
- Crow T. Robot, Mystery Science Theater 3000
It is almost as if the stock market itself has been imprisoned on the Satellite of Love for the past eight years. No matter what bad economic or market-related movie is set before investors, stocks have shown the relentless ability to laugh it off while continuing to travel deeper into the universe of new all-time highs. And while risks continue to accumulate as each new bad geopolitical, economic and market data-related movie increases the potential that stocks may finally go insane and capitulate to the downside, the fact remains that stocks continue to effortlessly riff to the upside in the meantime.
All of this leads to an important worthwhile question – can we reasonably expect the economic and market “mysteries” that continue to confound both investors and central bankers alike to eventually propel the S&P 500 Index higher to 3000 and beyond? And if so, when?
Not Bullish. Bearish.
“Oh, man, that's so sad — look, they're taking the cake back!”
- Joel Robinson, Mystery Science Theater 3000
Before going any further, it is important to emphasize an important point. Considering whether the S&P 500 Index (NYSEARCA:SPY) may rise to 3000 is no more bullish than evaluating the likelihood of a decline in the headline benchmark index back to 1600 is bearish. One could actually make the argument that the exact opposite is true with a move to 3000 being bearish and a decline to 1600 being bullish.
Now if stocks were to rise to 3000 and beyond supported by sustained economic growth and sound underlying fundamentals, then that would be decidedly bullish. But that’s not what has been taking place for much of the last seven years now. Instead, stocks have been rising largely
