The average U.S. stock is DOWN over 1% thus far in 2014. How can that be when we’re being told almost daily that the Dow and S&P 500 are hitting new all-time highs? The answer is likely to surprise you.

The current U.S. equity market has something for everyone. Whether you are bullish or bearish, there is no shortage of indicators or charts you can use to support your thesis.

Market historians will recall the term “Nifty 50” originated in the 1960’s bull market to describe 50 wildly popular large-cap stocks at the time. Interestingly, some of the same names from that list are leading the market higher today. The question for investors, of course, is what this selective advance means for the markets going forward.

The current U.S. equity market has something for everyone. Whether you are bullish or bearish, there is no shortage of indicators or charts you can use to support your thesis. Let’s run through both the Bull and the Bear case here. In the spirit of Confirmation Bias, feel free to skip ahead to the part that best supports your current positioning.

Greed may have been good for Gordon Gekko. but in the investment world it rarely is. As Warren Buffett is famous for saying "...be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful” [and now is such a time]...to start showing some level of fear here in the face of extreme greed by the crowd. The crowd can be right for a long time, but they are rarely right at extremes. While this time may be different, the probabilities suggest that at the very least it will be a more difficult environment for equities going forward.

The best way to understand how the stock market fluctuates is to study trends of individual stocks and broad market behaviors. I’ve created this infographic to help you do just that.

It is a reasonable bet that gold, about 40% below its 2011 high and facing large demand and dwindling supply, will rally in price over the next few years. Silver prices will follow gold prices but rally farther and faster from their currently low and oversold condition.

If you want to make money long-term, you have to bet against the prevailing consensus of most financial experts. I have never seen such an overwhelming bullish consensus as there is today that the economy is going to do great, that gold is a sell, and that the stock market is going to go higher, and if you want to build speculative wealth, you have to bet against that.

Are we in the third phase of a bull market? Most who will read this article will immediately say “no” but isn’t that what was always believed during the “mania” phase of every previous bull market cycle? With the current bull market now stretching into its sixth year; it seems appropriate to review the three very distinct phases of historical bull market cycles.

Obtaining a second passport and an offshore bank account are crucial parts of an overall diversification strategy, but they are not the only ones. Capturing international opportunities for your investment portfolio also has an important role and one of the easiest ways to do this is to own foreign currencies. Below are my 10 favorite reasons for doing so.