DOW 10,000

On April 7, 1999 Joe Smith was standing at the water fountain discussing his 10-and-a-half years to retirement with his coworkers. As he dared to share his retirement dreams Joe was thinking big. He and his wife would have endless time to travel on their hands and he had plenty stashed away in the stock market, which closed that day to the roar of floor traders at the New York Stock Exchange as the Dow industrials average closed above 10,000 for the first time in history. And this was just a year on from the Asian currency crisis that was close to sinking one economy in the region after another.

Well may Joe Smith have dreamed of riches and a life after work in the lap of luxury. With another decade of contributions to his 401k plan and with Dow 35,000 rolling off the presses, the sky was the limit for the lofty predictions of Wall Street analysts and of course for Joe.

Yes, yes, we made up Joe - he doesn't really exist. But the remaining facts are true. We write this to remind you that, despite a further 40% rally and a subsequent 50% drop from a 14,000+ handle, it's taken a decade for baby-boomer Joe Smith to arrive at retirement at the same Dow 10,000 as he cheered on in 1999. Where will the Dow industrial average be in 2019 we wonder?

Spurred on by strong bellwether earnings at banking and technology companies the Dow ran up 144 points in Wednesday's trading as a brave new bull market must be declared!

Stock market bears were also bullied out of sight by signs of life from the consumer. A government report showed a smaller than forecast drop in the level of sales, which gave support to the view that the consumer isn't as frightened to spend without stimulus tax breaks from the government as was feared some time ago.

While stocks marched ahead, investors shipped in more commodities and incidentally helped bury the dollar deeper and deeper in a morass of self-pity. The euro rose to $1.4955 at one point in late Wednesday trading and closer to the $1.50 we've been predicting. Readers of our premium futures trading service, Jurojin Weekly are waiting eagerly for a breach of this level to watch bullish euro currency call options head closer to their profit target.

Earlier this week readers also scored a nice gain on a bullish play on gold, once again employing a well-known options strategy. Thankfully that position was closed for a nice $1,130 per contract gain yesterday. On Wednesday gold failed to stick to the schedule and fell despite the dollar's all-round losses. One might say it was a little lackluster - but it would be premature to say that this is another red-flag. Any bull run deserves time to pause before heading higher.

The price of crude oil maintained its march above $75 per barrel as investors got further excited by the prospects of global economic recovery.

We're pretty sure that this enthusiasm will come to a crashing end at some point soon and that must mean there are some fantastic contrarian plays out there.

Right now, we're just not seeing them.

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The Supreme Council of the Secret Order of Jurojin

Tyche Research