Bigworld, With the stock market, it's hard to argue with its resilience over very long periods. But while it's rare for a really long drought, it does happen. One of the longest 'nowhere' periods for stocks was from 2000 --> 2013, where it took 13 years for the S+P 500 to finally get above its 2000 peak. During the period from 1966 - 1982 it took even longer --> 16 years for the DJIA to get back to its peak from 1966.
The approaching debt bomb crisis represents something that hasn't happened before --> the US dollar losing its status as the world's main reserve currency. When the British pound lost its world's reserve status between WW1 and WW2, the US dollar was there to gradually take over that role. As the US dollar system begins teetering in earnest, some possible scenarios could include the new BRICS currency stepping in, and / or the SDR - Special Drawing Rights of the IMF taking a key role as the world's reserve currency.
The timeline is the big unknown, but I'm figuring things start to hit the fan as the US debt enters the $40-50 trillion range. Just a guess, but if so then investors would want to start reducing their bond allocations in a few years from now (2026-27), and move away from financial assets toward more hard assets. Fwiw, I figure we still have a couple years, but the debt reaching $40 tril will be the signal that the debt bomb is approaching the global 'confidence is lost' level for the US dollar.
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