My Comments: In keeping with my effort to stay away from Woe & Gloom stuff, here is my latest, read it and don’t weep article.

Sept 28, 2016 | by Barbara Kollmeyer

The bulls have been nervous for a while, yet the stock market keeps rising.

Those who think the market has run out of steam are not hard to find. A possible Federal Reserve hike in December — or not, which could create a crisis of confidence in the central bank — is just one reason some think the market is high enough as it stands. Then there’s a presidential election in November whose outcome no one is ready to predict with any certainty.

Still, some, like Sean Emory, chief investment officer of Avory & Co., say bring on the fourth quarter, because the S&P 500 SPX, has plenty of strength to keep going through the end of the year and on into the early part of 2017.

He gives three reasons to back that up but notes that it’s important the index stays above 2,100 for this to all work, and if it goes below that level then he’d trim some long exposure.

The first reason that Emory believes the market will move higher is that it’s such a hated bull market, as evidenced by surveys from the American Association of Individual Investors; the second is that the spread between dividends and 10-year Treasurys is sitting in positive territory, a rarity, and that will keep propping up demand for equities, he says. The last reason is seasonality.

The fourth quarter, he says, “has historically been up 80% of the time over the last 50 years, and [in the] 30 to 60 trading sessions post-elections the market has been up 60% to 63% of the time since 1928.”

The worst period for buying around elections is the seven days just after, according to Emory.

Here’s his chart that lays out those figures: