Pie

As we pass the anniversary of the beginning of the rally that climbed out of the March 2009 lows, we can see a little desperation from the market makers. They have spent a year building a low volume frothy rally with borrowed money and government welfare injected into their high frequency prop trading machine. They've been telling the small investors for a year that, "the water is fine, jump back in the pool, come on, dive in, dive in!", but so far, most small investors have not made that dive ( maybe the unemployment numbers tell us a lot about why? ).

The banks are giving no ground. They are paying less than inflation on money parked in savings. You can't go to bonds- the Fed is buying those up to keep yields low. Anyone who wants a decent yield is being teased by the equity markets. They're looking like the only game in town.

When will we know that the rally is over? When the small investors make that dive. They will be sold to, and then the floor will drop out.

Like any Ponzi scheme, you can't add a horde of new investors to the pool and keep the returns at the same level. The pie is cut into more pieces, and that means smaller pieces..