DJIA comes out of the gate STRONG on Monday morning, up 113 now to 17,115
Right on track to meet my prediction earlier in this thread, I must say.
Prices in a "free market" are those freely negotiated between a willing seller and a willing buyer. Since there is so much money floating around in the investment classes, it only stands to reason that prices of securities should rise, as they are.
However, increasing prices make them less attractive, relative to other investments; not necessarily in an absolute sense, but in a relative sense. Earnings cannot keep pace, IMO the "real economy" is not rising as quickly as is the amount of money in circulation; therefore, gains need to come from price increases. Price increases won't go on forever, because there will be a wave of people taking their money out of the markets, which will drive down prices to some extent. To me, it still looks like a large-scale pump-and-dump.
Some will make off like bandits, some will get burned, same as it ever was. Here's something, though: IMHO, after the sell-off, I think that many who exited the market will, of necessity, re-enter. There's still nothing else out there, in general, that is as good as the market, relative to how much work you need to put in. Sitting in cash sounds great to some, annuities to some, bonds to some, real estate to some, physical metals to some, etc. Unless interest rates rise significantly, there will be nowhere else reasonable to park money, other than in the markets. What they may lack in return, they more than make up for in convenience, low maintenance, lack of sophistication like capital acquisition and depreciation, and low transaction costs.
And, like I said before, the rich don't much care if they are making "only" 4% or 5%, rather than 20 or 30%--at 4 or 5%, they are still raking in a lot of money, on top of the lot that they already have. (I say "don't much care" understanding full well that they do, in fact, care.)
So much for diversification for the everyman. REAL diversification, I mean, NOT diversification within the markets.
For now, the DJIA screams upward!