We'd lived in two places in Connecticut and another in a Pittsburgh suburb - renting in all three places - when my folks finally were able to buy their first house, a red-brick colonial in a Steel City suburb known as Murrysville.
It was late 1967 - my mom was expecting my youngest sister, Carol Ann - and we moved in just before the Christmas holidays.
Because the house was finished late in the year, the yard wasn't fully graded and seeded. So at the bottom of the stone driveway that snaked down from the street and wrapped around the back of the house to form a decent-sized parking pad was a decent-sized dirt pile.
To the seven-year-old mind, that dirt pile seemed to reach for the very clouds above.
The earthen pinnacle conjured images of Mt. Everest, which I'd read about in school. The dirt clogs that helped comprise its bulk were great for throwing at enemy neighbors. The soil-and-clay mound (and the muddy pool beside it) gave me a "Guns of Navarone-ish" backdrop for my olive-drab-plastic Marx Battleground tanks and army men - and a stage for reenacting the D-Day Invasion.
And when us kids wanted to trade places with those plastic soldiers - and "be" the combatants ourselves - that dirt hill served as the ultimate stage for rounds of "King of the Hill."
You know the game, of course. One person climbs to that peak - and tries to stay there by fending off the energetic shoves or aggressive yanks of those who would be king.
In the world of kid-dom, this was the ultimate kind of combat: The winner stood tall, ready to take on all comers; the loser endured an ignominious tumble to the bottom.
As memories go, this is a timely one to share with all of you.
And here's why:
Today, at 4 p.m. EDT, barring an extraordinarily bearish slap from an unforeseen threat, U.S. investors will witness the crowning of a new "King of the Hill."
You see, by the time the market closes today, the current bull market will dethrone its predecessor - the 114-month 1990 to 2000 bull market - as the longest bull run of all time.
I'm really excited about what's coming next...
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The View from the Top (of the Bull Market)
Today, the U.S. bull market that was launched from the S&P 500 low of 676.53 on March 9, 2009 turned 3,453 days old.
And that will make it the longest rally ever.
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Milestones like this are fun to watch and are great to be able to look back on so you can tell folks, "I was there."
That's exciting, but once that milestone is reached, it automatically becomes a part of history - a piece of the past.
After that, you need to look forward - otherwise you run the same risk as someone who's driving at high speed while focusing only on the rearview mirror.
Do that, and the only certainty is a wreck - and probably a fatal one, at that.
So once we crown the current bull market as the new "King of the Hill," it's time to turn our attention to the future.
A future that includes making money.
Lots of money.
And we believe there will be plenty of opportunities, says Shah Gilani, a friend and colleague who runs the Zenith Trading Circle advisory here at Money Map Press.
"As I see it, Bill, the outlook here is pretty clear," Shah told me last week. "As long as interest rates remain low - and they will, because the Fed isn't about to raise rates enough to cause stocks to tip over and wipe out the 'wealth effect' this bull run keeps supporting - stocks will remain a better option than other profit plays. Strong earnings - especially from the market-leader stocks like big-name techs, coupled with the Nasdaq's continued stellar performance - will keep valuations in check. Active investors will keep adding to their positions, and cash will keep coming off the sidelines - especially into passive investments like ETFs. Besides the strong demand, there's another bullish factor at work: The supply of stocks is falling, too. Thanks to buybacks, buyouts, bankruptcies, and a reduction in IPO deals, the U.S. stock market hasn't seen an annual net increase in shares outstanding since 2000."
The bottom line here, according to Shah, is "a straightforward equation, where growing demand is chasing fewer stocks - pointing to a long-and-steep uptrend for stocks."
I like this assessment from a shrewd guy whose mantra is "there's always a place to make money... always - you just have to make sure you look at all the possibilities."
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What I also like is that - despite this new "King of the Hill" moment, there's not a universal bullish sentiment for stocks.
And that's been true for much of this bull-market run, says CNBC journalist Patti Domm.
"The current bull market has been called the most unloved at many stages in its nine-year life," Domm wrote last week. "But now it is facing record earnings and the best stretch of economic growth yet. Those are two key factors for market gains, and they are in place at the same time the Federal Reserve removes some of the easing it instituted to create liquidity and encourage investors to buy riskier assets, such as stocks."
Shah sees the same thing:
"Look, Bill, global growth is bolstering investable capital everywhere - and the investors holding that money are facing depressed interest rates, meaning they look to stocks for the most robust returns," he told me. "That's why the sun's been shining on stocks and why equity markets have such a bright future. But that doesn't mean there aren't storms brewing and that investor selling won't cause the bull to rest from time to time. That's always been true. That's always going to happen. And it's healthy. Here in America, the near-term storm that's already throwing water on the recent ascent of U.S. stocks to higher all-time highs is the implosion of Turkey's currency, the lira. This summer storm is a worrisome sign for U.S. equity markets as well as being an even bigger storm facing emerging markets and European markets.
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"So, there's always a storm brewing somewhere, meaning there's always a chance stocks will take a hit, as panicked investors take profits and hedge funds and aggressive traders short stocks to profit from whatever negative feedback loops they can create or pile onto," Shah continued. "But storms are storms and not the prevailing weather pattern equity markets have been enjoying. That's why I'm calling for sunny, ascending markets with only a chance of passing showers."
To reap the maximum benefit from this continuation of "King Bull," though, Shah said investors will need to be more opportunistic than usual.
In other words, you'll need to be an "active" investor.
Here's why.
While "passive" index-fund investors have benefitted from the gains the S&P 500 has generated over the past nine years, that strategy, by definition, means that you're also getting 100% of the downside, writes Forbes reporter Adam Sarhan.
"From the peak in 2000 to the bottom in 2002, the S&P 500 fell 49%, and from the peak in 2007 to the bottom in 2009, it fell 58%," Sarhan writes. "Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite Index plunged 78.40% in 2000-2002 and tanked 55.77% from 2007-2009! To make matters worse, it took the Nasdaq about 15 years before it took out [its] high from March 2000. That means your money would have plummeted nearly 80%, and you would have been staring at red ink (losses) for nearly 15-16 years before it got back to even, if you bought in 2000."
The Key to Beating This (or Any) Market
So what should you buy?
Well, my Private Briefing subscribers get access to my "Super 10 List" of stocks to "Accumulate" on pullbacks.
While I can't share all of those with you today, I can fill you in one our favorite top performers.
It's been on such a tear lately that the financial media are beginning to take notice. Zacks Investment Research detailed one of our favorites: BioTelemetry Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAT).
Zacks has a bullish view of the stock.
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"The bull market, in the last decade, has survived a slew of financial and political upheavals and elevated valuations, partly due to the Fed's accommodative monetary policy," the financial research service said in a new report. "Some market pundits, however, may argue that the Fed has now shifted to a tighter monetary policy, prompting them to predict an imminent demise of the bull run. But that isn't going to happen. The U.S. market still has plenty of upside. The underlying strength in the market, courtesy of a solid labor market, improving consumer confidence, and robust earnings, is expected to propel stocks higher for at least another year."
BioTelemetry will be a beneficiary.
The Malvern, Pa.--based medical-tech firm is actually an old friend here at Private Briefing. Because of the company's focus on heart-monitoring sensors, I nicknamed it "Cardio Corp." when tech editor Michael Robinson and I first brought it to my subscribers back in September 2015.
BEAT is up 265% since that initial Private Briefing recommendation.
And it's up 12.9% since July 16, when - as part of that second-half-prediction series - Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald told you it was one of his favorite stocks for the latter half of 2018. That's an annualized return of 154.9% - underscoring Keith's savviness.
Zacks says that its consensus estimate for current-year earnings jumped 10.5% in the last two months.
"The stock's expected growth rate for the current quarter and year are 93.8% and 51.6%, respectively," Zacks analysts wrote. "The company has given a solid return of 681.3% in the past decade."
We'll keep bringing you the very best moneymaking plays we see - and the best insights from the smartest stable of investment experts I've ever worked with.
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About the Author
Before he moved into the investment-research business in 2005, William (Bill) Patalon III spent 22 years as an award-winning financial reporter, columnist, and editor. Today he is the Executive Editor and Senior Research Analyst for Money Morning at Money Map Press.