Last Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke promised to end his bond-buying addiction - cold turkey - in mid-2014. That is, as long as the economy is strong enough. As a result, investor fortitude was pushed to the brink. Stocks sold off hard, sending the S&P 500 Index down 1.4%. Before you head for the exits, too, let's get a little perspective.

The rubber band of Mr. Market has been stretched tight and is ready to release. The problem is that it is impossible to know which end is going to snap. Will it snap up or snap down?

The return of the U.S. dollar - and the secular outperformance of the U.S. dollar vs. the rest of the world - is a HUGE, huge trend. HUGE.

Nearly all markets except the dollar reacted rather badly to Ben Bernanke's news conference – even though it actually contained no news - Treasury yields soared, stocks were whacked, and so was gold. While the charts certainly don't look good in the short term, though, it should be pointed out though that investors with a longer time horizon probably won't make a big mistake by buying on weakness. That being said, however, in the short term all the tentative evidence that a bottoming process may be under way has by now been eradicated. Below are a number of charts illustrating the situation.

How could everything be selling off at once? Aren’t the various different asset classes (stocks, bonds, gold) meant to be hedges against each other? The simple answer is that although it would be great if that were the case, it isn’t — it never was.

Eiffel tower patterns can be very important to your portfolio construction & management because, when you experience the left side of the tower, you often experience the right side as well which often results in declines of as much as 50% from the peak. Currently it would appear that three specific assets could well be forming such patterns.

I believe this sell-off is a good thing for the market - as the outcome will show us where fair value might be. I believe that we will see the market return to a more reasonable forward P/E of 13, sending SPY to $150.00 - or another 5 percent decline. [Let me explain further.]

Just the mere suggestion that this round of quantitative easing will eventually end if the economy improves is enough to severely rattle Wall Street. U.S. financial markets have become completely and totally addicted to easy money, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen when the Fed takes the "smack" away. When that day comes, will the largest bond bubble in the history of the world burst? Will interest rates rise dramatically? Will it throw the U.S. economy into another deep recession? Can the Fed fix this mess without it totally blowing up?

A recent Trim Tabs report claims that almost every single asset class in the world is overvalued yet, while there may be some areas that are frothy, to claim that almost every single asset class in the world is overvalued is a bit of a stretch. This article refutes these claims.

The overreach of the "War on Terror" and heavy-handed copyright laws lend the cover for any US agency to monitor and control your Internet activity. These, and myriad other laws, mean that your personal/business website can be seized at the drop of a hat under the flimsiest of pretexts. Fortunately, it is relatively easy and cheap to move your digital presence across borders where it can dwell in friendlier jurisdictions.