Why does this bull market get no respect?

This quarter we mark the 4 year anniversary of the bottoming of the great recession, at least in equity market terms, because as we know there is still a large portion of the country that has still not recovered.

The past weekend's edition of USA today was headlined by a question Why does this bull market get no respect?  One of the short answers is the lack of confidence people have in investing period.  After being rocked by the dot.com bubble in the early 2000's then enduring the subsequent equity market free fall along with the bursting of the housing bubble, investors are practically scared stiff.

To make matters worse investors who have sat this huge rally out are probably even more fearful to get back in now as the equity markets touch new 5 year highs.  With investing you have to be forward looking.  Does the future look better than the past?

As we pointed out in this post along with Doug Kass, there will always be varying degrees of uncertainty.  The question then becomes, which ones are worth dealing with and which ones are not?  As more "black swam" events appear to be occurring more frequently, it gets harder and harder trying to decided when to be in the markets and when to be out.  In our minds, it is not an all or nothing strategy.  Rather it is having a basic understanding of what future risks could be and then adjusting your strategy to minimize those risks head on.

Full USA Today article here