All cycles come to an end. Interest rates are as low as they ever will get: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_funds_rate upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Federal_Funds_Rate_1954_thru_2009_effective.svg/640px-Federal_Funds_Rate_1954_thru_2009_effective.svg.png Inflation is higher than many people would like to believe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Historical_Inflation.svg upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/US_Historical_Inflation.svg/800px-US_Historical_Inflation.svg.png Our country has the highest amount of debt ever. Much of it is not even included in this chart as the government owns a tremendous amount of debt in mortgages underwritten by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/US_Public_Debt_Ceiling_1981-2010.png/800px-US_Public_Debt_Ceiling_1981-2010.png Unemployment is much worse than the government is reporting on this chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_the_United_States upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/US_Unemployment_1890-2009.gif Certainly there is a huge wall of worry about there for the stock market to climb but can it really go much higher in the face of these problems? RtS