Gotta love ZERO RISK in the SP500 = $$$

povstanets said:
I agree with many of your points; however, the U.S. Fed has a dual mandate, so they could postpone a rate hike if they knew markets would correct significantly and companies would layoff employees - the markets perception of this mandate is the entire basis of today's rally. Of course, how much "weight" they give to each mandate is the most important question. These quotes from the Chicago Fed are very troubling to me as it seems to suggest they would tolerate very high inflation (and stock market speculation) to meet the unemployment mandate.

"The most reasonable interpretation of our maximum employment objective is an unemployment rate near its natural rate, and a fairly conservative estimate of that natural rate is 6%. So, when unemployment stands at 9%, we’re missing on our employment mandate by 3 full percentage points. That’s just as bad as 5% inflation versus a 2% target. So, if 5% inflation would have our hair on fire, so should 9% unemployment."

"The trigger policy I noted above and level-targeting policies may result in inflation running at rates that would make us uncomfortable during normal times. But we should not be afraid of such temporarily higher inflation results today."

https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/speeches/2011/09-07-dual-mandate
More...

I'm unclear on how US markets will play out the rest of this year, but my instincts suggest a corrective phase during the summer anticipating some modest interest rate hikes that likely will occur this fall ( just like Canada did in fall 2010 ). I swing trade indexes for my long term investments, did really well from 2009-2013, in 100% cash since late May 2013 and that ended up being too early. Missed 2-3 logical entry points since because I tried to time the bottom of each correction too well. October 2014 I was on the fence ready to buy and missed out by a day.

Seasonality that you mentioned is an important aspect of my choices on these funds, in concert with major historical support/resistance points. Note this is my conservative money, capital conservation is more important then swinging for HRs. Over my lifetime, I've noticed that a patient approach to indexes is the best policy, there are always really good entry points at some point, and today's US markets I don't think look attractive all things being considered. But I was wrong in 2013 so I could be wrong in 2015. March 2009 was an obvious buying opportunity in Canada, I knew once the highly profitable Canadian banks were out of favour that market sentiment was way overdone on the sell side.
 
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