Broad agreement seems to be spreading on Wall Street that we are late in this economic and market cycle.
But what exactly does that mean for investors when no one knows for sure how long it can “stay late” — or how generous the market might be before the cycle turns from “late” to “over?”
Perhaps it’s no surprise that strategists are checking their watch and eyeing the door at this stage. For the literalists who date the start of this bull market to the March 9, 2009, bear-market low, this has been the second-longest advance on record without a 20 percent drop. The U.S. economy has been expanding almost as long, and equities are as expensive as they’ve been at plenty of bull-market peaks, if not all of them.
