Looking at various market charts, it's clear that we are still within a nearly 6-year trend that actually accelerated at the steepest rate in history starting about 2 years ago - Dow, S&P, Transports, etc. Also clear is the fact that average volumes have been dropping during this period too, much as they accelerated going into the Financial Crisis.

Manic price increases do not mix well with falling volumes, IMO. I keep reading so-called professional forecasts that anticipate even higher stock prices, but none of these people seem to notice what should be a relationship between price trends and volumes. Perhaps that is only because these falling volumes are not obvious in daily, weekly or monthly charts, although the nearly 6-year trend is clear.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^DJI+Interactive#{%22range%22%3A%22max%22%2C%22scale%22%3A%22linear%22}

I heard on TV this morning that Mom & Pop investor are in the market at the lowest levels since the year 2000. Does this not mean that retail investors are largely out of the market, and are not these people usually the driving force behind these markets?

Meanwhile, metals prices (other than uranium) have been trending down for some time now. Zinc is about the drop below a dollar, and copper is approaching the 3 dollar level. Over the last 6 years, these prices have been both up and down while broader markets have been only up.

POG is about to hit a triple bottom over the last 20-21 months. Technically that's supposed to be a very good sign - for gold -, suggesting that something there is about to change. If that happens, and mining/POG turn up, I'm thinking that it will not be so good for the broader markets.

Be careful out there.

VP (...just thinking out loud)