The Dow is the embodiment of a going-nowhere market. How well has "buy'n hold" worked for most investors? Still, looking at this chart in a vacuum, it is hard to be overly bearish. Note that Dow has remained mostly above its 61.8% fib retracement level (10,020+/-) of its cyclical bear market for 2 years.

While the mess at the top of the page has done all it could to avoid the abyss, gold investors simply locked on to the fact that inflation policy runs the show. No inflation? No economy. Simple.

We have shown variations of this chart many times. But it is important in illustrating the idea that while there may be a cyclical "bull" market in force in equities, it is a price thing, not a value thing. Stocks, when measured in gold, look sickly heading into the new year.