New high for the S&P 500: back up the mountain

We've reached a new all-time high on the S+P 500 (in nominal terms, anyway) with today's close of 1,658.78.

Four years from the March 2009 bottom, we're up nearly 1,000 points on the SPX. If we go back to the weekly close of 1,576 from the last bull market high (in October 2007), that's a 1,902 point round-trip in the S+P. We've gone down, and back up, the mountain in that time.

There has been broad participation in this latest move higher, with over 90% of S+P 500 stocks trading above their 200 day moving average. The trend is up and the market continues to climb the (increasingly global) wall of worry. Not to mention, as Ray Dalio learned some time ago, "currency depreciation and money printing are good for stocks".

Related posts:

1. Bonds vs. stocks: March 2009 - April 2013.

2. Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards: Ray Dalio.

Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards: Scott Ramsey

Today we continue our series, "Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards" , with a look at Jack Schwager's interview with Scott Ramsey of Denali Asset Management. Ramsey, a futures trader and CTA who works on the island of St. Croix, spoke to Schwager about his first foray into the markets, his evolution as a trader, and the process he stands by to protect and grow his clients' money. 1) . Ramsey started trading in college. He was roped into the OTC metals market via a broker's ad in the Wall St. Journal. The broker charged customers a flat fee to buy and sell as much as they wanted in a particular market for six month. At the time, Scott was a novice and didn't know about futures, so he traded metals in this fashion through the inflationary run-up of the late 1970s. 2) . Scott had to rethink his trading strategy after he bought silver at $50 an oz., only to watch it collapse to $26 following a long string of limit-down days. He sold as soon as the market...

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