Prediction: 2010

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on 2010 because it's almost half over.  Having said that, I think we've learned a lot lately from the way the market has acted so far this year.  We've seen three phases:  sell-off to start the year in January and February, then a remarkable and illogical rally that brought the market to new highs not seen since 2007 this April, followed by a sharp (yet very necessary) correction at the end of April and through May.  I think we've hit a support level at around 1050 on the S&P 500, but it won't hold up for very long.  After a brief rally, I see the correction continuing through the summer until a new rally emerges either in August or sometime in the fall.  This will be a last gasp effort by the bulls to push the market to new highs.  It will fail.  There is simply no fundamental justification for a new bull market at this time.  There are way too many issues that must be addressed over the next few years before the world will enter a new era of prosperity and market gains (likely coupled with major inflation).  In any case, I'm not really a technical analysis kind of investor--I dabble in it, but I'm not an expert on it, so I'm not going to get any more specific than that with regard to 2010.  I could be wrong and a last attempt at a rally could start sooner.  If that happens, we could see a major correction at the end of the year.  To summarize and generalize, in the end it will be more profitable to be a bear in 2010.