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[highnote]

The most recent round of bullishness began on June 28 when nyse up stocks outnumbered down stocks 9 to 1.

June 29 was also a 9 to 1 ratio.

July 8 was nearly 16 to 1!

Most days since June 28 have been in the range of 2 or 3 to 1 up stocks to down stocks, with only a couple of days where down stocks outnumbered up stocks.

The start of this bull market is the biggest one I've seen since the beginning of the March 2009 rally. The 2009 rally had a big spurt forward in July and another in September. That was a great year for stocks.

Last February's rally was pretty good, but not like this one.

Last October was bigger than February, but the market was very weak just before October. The difference today is that the market was already pretty strong and it got even stronger the past couple of weeks.

I don't know how long the current rally will last, but right now there is a lot of upward momentum. If you're not on the bandwagon then you better get out of the way or this train is going to roll right over you.

About the only thing that could stop it is a big interest rate hike.

I think it's safe to say this rally should last through the election. If Clinton wins the rally will probably continue because the regime will stay the same for the most part. Plus, the stock market traditionally does better under Democratic presidents than Republicans. I don't know why. You'd think the opposite would be true. But the research says otherwise.

If Trump gets elected then all bets are off. There would be a lot of changes in Washington and it's hard to say how the markets would react.

I'm not sure how to play the current market except to stay long. In 2009 there was a lot of uncertainty and the VIX was very high. It was a great time to be long and sell deep out of the money covered calls because there was so much easy premium to capture due to volatility.

Currently, the VIX is low at around 12 or 13. Not a lot of volatility, so not a lot of option premium on deep out of the money calls.

I did buy some YCS -- an ultra short yen fund. I expect the yen to get much weaker. Japan is printing money like crazy to try to weaken their currency so that their exports become cheaper for consumers in countries like the U.S. They are doing everything they can to inflate their way out of recession.