I suppose that I could lavish you with lots of thoughts about how were are stuck in some crazy feed-back loop of Fed induced mirages and half recoveries yet it would only be tired old cry that prattles on about how the deception will work well, till it doesn't.
So, instead of singing the same old tune and holding my nose and buying those stocks that have been defensive and leading this nutty rally for the last year or so, I'll simply provide a snapshot of the old sector rotation model that we've examined before. My guess is that we are nearer to the far right side of this image which would suggest that the equity markets have topped AND we are in early recession. The only fly in the ointment if you will is that I have been holding utilities, healthcare, and consumer staples for almost two years and these stocks have been our leaders! This segment of the equity markets usually doesn't maintain leadership for this long, so as usual, there are new, weird, and unknown forces at work in this screwed up Fed driven market.
If we think we really are progressing along the economic cycle, you might dip a toe in the finance area, (which I did when I bought some regional bank stocks several months ago). Those are about flat still, so I guess we'll see how long it takes for the economy to finally break down in a real way and have those interest rates rise, bringing helpful and healthy rising net interest margin...... hold your breath about rising rates, it probably won't ever happen.
GOATMUG