If people expect stocks to crash, then the expected "crash" is probably already priced in. If people expect a recession, then the reduction in economic activity is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's why the fear of losing out dominates everything else right now and every mini correction gets bought - until something unexpected happens.

At this point I think it just depends on what the central banks want, as they took control over stock market prices with the low interest rates.

That's not really true outside the US. And in fact it's not even true for the smaller cap stocks in the US. The Japanese stock market being the most cited foreign example of the opposite. Pretty much everywhere outside the US the stock market is very vulnerable. Odds are this will come to the US sooner or later.

They can QE forever to feed the demand, however it's on the whim of a few powerful people when and how some shortage will occur. Stocks grew 20% YoY with flat earnings in the last few years. Price discovery and market signals are dying, but they are dying for both directions up or down.

Many analysts expect asset prices and income inequality to be a major topic of debate this election and we don't know yet if Fed policy will be at the crosshairs. Either way social justice impulse will be stronger against the tech giants either thru cancel culture or outright riots.

Be clear: you are betting if you take Bogle's advice. You are going all-in. If you know what you are doing, great...but that is probably not the case.

It is "manipulated" to the same extent as anything else.

Of course as technology is getting faster and creating more value, and people are moving to cities, it's hard to get a correct valuation, but still gold seems undervalued compared to these other asset classes.

Especially when those in power are doing everything they can to prevent it. The Federal reserve has a trading floor and participates as a proxy for the government in the markets. There is also the rumored Plunge Protection Team. We actually have markets pricing in the likelihood of further quantitative easing 11 years after it was first done to address a prior crash. And for it all, we have only really accomplished concentrating wealth and increasing income inequality.

None of the above really appears sound. I expect things to change, mainly because I think the above cannot continue indefinitely.

However, You can still have downward spiral even in case "everyone is talking/preparing for coming crisis". Imagine this:

- China going finally bust

- honkong peg to dolar broken (financial companies there going bust)

- australia mining slowdown and property market bust

- australia banking woes

Even though there are money on the sidelines, you can have crisis and even more money on the sidelines during few fearful quarters.

I don't think any sane person doubts that China is going to have a debt crisis btw (it started a while ago), the question is whether they can do what they did in 1997.

But yeah: already started.

And before anyone says "fed reserve 2 percent", the federal reserve is known to lie.