Bulls and Bears Battling on a Tight Wire

"Stock market: Is new all-time high ahead?"
- USA Today 7:18 AM 8/23/2012

That was a headline I read this morning. I know the S&P is seeing 4 year highs but its hardly been a smooth climb, bouncing around from range to range. Are we on the brink of a grisly Bear market like Bill Gross proclaimed from his perch on a mound of munis or are we on the verge of a golden 2013 as others have postured? And what’s that adage about not bears nor bulls, but pigs getting slaughtered..

Given the increasingly unlikely chances of a soft landing in China, a booming domestic economic recovery, or even a resolution in Europe, how do we feel about the bear on bull battle?

Keep in mind, last year a substantial climb in the markets began sometime in the fall, running strong until the old adage "Sell in May" brought the bulls to a painful halt. And to be fair, those market conditions were pretty ugly as well, worse than where we sit now arguably. Coming out a Euro crisis rocked month of August, markets rallied with poor underlying fundamentals. Now a year later, with American firms stronger and hungry will global demand or lack there of stifle a market run?

Will Emerging Markets be able to juice themselves through their cyclical slowdowns enough to keep a status quo of sorts? Do we see a return of the retail investor to the equity markets?

" ’There is no real significance in the new (intraday) 2012 highs except as a marker of progress,’ says John Manley, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management. ‘After 12 years of nothing good, the bull case needs to prove itself.’"
-USA Today 7:18 AM 8/23/2012

Personally, when articles start putting up headlines like “When will stock markets set a new all-time high?” I start looking for the next range expansion to the downside. If so, time for investors to tuck in their longs and traders to untie their liquidity for the bounce in volatility that follows.