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.

Never before in the history of the United States have we been faced with the threat of such a great financial catastrophe but, sadly, most Americans are totally oblivious to all of this. They continue to have faith that their leaders know what they are doing, and they have been lulled into complacency by the bubble of false stability that we have been enjoying for the last couple of years. Unfortunately for them, however, this bubble of false stability is not going to last much longer and when the financial crisis comes it is going to make 2008 look like a Sunday picnic. Let me explain why I believe the aforementioned to be the case.

The struggle over Ukraine has caused Russia to completely re-evaluate the financial relationship that it has with the United States. If it starts trading a lot of oil and natural gas for currencies other than the U.S. dollar, that will be a massive blow for the petrodollar, and it could end up dramatically - and negatively - impacting the average American's current standard of living. Let me explain.

Some market commentators are touting gold as a great portfolio diversifier, convincing investors that the precious metal could benefit their portfolio but there may be better alternatives than gold if the motivation is to find a hedge for economic uncertainty or political unrest.

Many mainstream economists want nothing to do with economic cycle theorists, but it should be noted that economic cycle theories have enabled some analysts to correctly predict the timing of recessions, stock market peaks and stock market crashes over the past couple of decades - and there are many economists who believe that the period from 2014 to 2020 is going to turn out to be pure hell for the United States.

The health of a market is best assessed along three vectors: fundamentals, technicals (price action) and sentiment and this is what each is saying about the health of the markets these days.

Every now and then very informative, insightful and well-written financial articles gets buried by more trendy, exciting and provocative articles and, as such, they get overlooked - fly under the radar as Malaysia flight MH370 has done. Below are introductory paragraphs and links to a few such articles posted on the internet in the past week that are still very timely and well worth your time to check out.

In the not-too-distant future, sociopolitical and economic conditions in the U.S. will be changing dramatically, affecting tens of millions of Americans and to that end the U.S. government has enacted new legislation that allows it to transform itself into a full-on police state.

The impending emergence of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Debt, Derivatives, Deficits & Dollar) may soon sound the death knell of the entire U.S. economic recovery [we have seen] since early 2009 and eventually and sadly morph into mass Unemployment, Home Foreclosures, Stagnant Wages & Shrinking Retirement.

Don’t listen to what the official numbers say. Inflation is a big problem already for the U.S. economy - and in an inflationary environment, gold bullion goes up and stock prices go down, because materials cost more and consumers spend less. I’d adjust my portfolio accordingly for the rapid inflation that awaits us.