Quote from hels02:
In all seriousness, I worry about this market too. We do need a bigger correction, if only to get people to panic and get out so there's more money to come back in later. We need people shorting and expecting the worst at any time. We need the wall of worry.
However, things today are different than they used to be. The reason things were so bad in 1929 and even 1987 was leverage and margins. The laws about what's permissible today is a lot different from what it was. In 1929, you could put up 10% cash and margin 90% to buy stocks. That's impossible now.
Even if we 'crash', we have measures in place to prevent serious the catastrophic kind from happening again. From gov't buy back programs (that Treasury dept plan of action) to simply shutting the Exchanges themselves down so the automated sell programs don't all kick in at once. What is it at? 10% crash and everything kicks in to stop a freefall?
While a correction may come, a crash isn't all that scary anymore. It's not the crash we need to worry about, it's the slow, slow, stairstepping down to watch out for.
And we're not there yet.