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[nimblebear]

This really began years before the last market crash in '08, but the generations following the boomers, have near zero interest in touching stocks. Don't believe me ? Just check out the demographic audience of CNBC.

Couple of market crashes spaced 7 years apart will do that.

Add to that the perverse effect of zero interest rates, that will continue far longer than anyone can imagine. It HAS to because of the US national debt, and running massive deficits. The Blueprint has been cast, and our government has to spend and spend and spend some due to locked in entitlements.

Meanwhile, while average folks below the age of 30 aren't interested in stocks, they are also doing everything they can to save, and avoid debt. Zero interest rates, actually spurs additional incentive to save more, or rather not spend as much if at all possible.

There is no 'boomer' generation that will follow, and along with that are all the bad habits that are dead.

Boomers are retiring en masse to the tune of 10,000 per day, they are downsizing, and of any generation, have the most money currently tied up in the markets. They are literally, hoping, and praying, stocks continue up, but locked in the realization they no longer have years to 'save' and now have to CHASE yield. That they are when you see both the stock market rising, while dividend yielding stocks at significant premiums.

Boomers don't know how to save, except for the tail end of the boomers born after 1958. They largely haven't really 'needed' to learn to truly save either, thanks to ever decreasing bond yields, and a generally rising stock market since 1982.

Not too many people get the demographics, and most who think they do, are wrong. Just as what's his face, that forecasted Dow 30,000 back in the late 90's.

The attached link to McClellan's site is a good one to reference the decreasing debt (which means less and less credit extended), which is not a good sign for the markets, and represents a pretty significant and rather long divergence of this sort.

It doesn't portray 'savings', but its an indication that is starck, and one that will eventually show up in earnings, and then lastly stock prices.

http://www.mcoscilla...debt_shrinking/

The saving trend is secular. It HAS to be. The demographics below the age of 40, intuitively know deep down they are screwed, but humankind has the survival instinct that over-rides all emotions, and supercede's even that of greed and wontaness, and their sub-conscious of all of those people is telling them, there are no risks worth taking, few gains left in any asset class that hasn't already been bubblelized several times over, so the result is to both save, and try extremely hard to stay out of debt.

Media doesn't not want the mainstream masses to know this, and since it is controlled by the elite, they are doing everything in their power to counter the savings, in trying to get people to continue to buy, buy, buy, and consume ever more.

This secular trend has only just begun, and not even the power of the FED, and its chicanery, can overcome it.

Not only in this country, but the entire world, is entering a period of far slower growth, far more saving, and far more effort at capital building (the hard way), because there simply is little other choice. The blood has been completely squeezed out of the turnip. 40 years of excess, and a Quadrillion in leveraged bad bets called derivatives will do that.

The masses are rejecting the notions of the elites, and the boomers in the US. Bernanke tried to bury and punish savers, and has extracted trillions from them in the US, on ripping down interest rates. Well, its not that people aren't that stupid, but the survival instinct is certainly not going to steer them toward stocks. Primarily the biggest gamblers, who haven't really faced the reality of grim survival, are the US boomers. The over optimistic, over achieving, over consuming, and over-spending boomers. They'll continue to spend in retirement, not leaving any inheritance, other than the legacy of a country that is in-debted for some generations to come. If their spending keeps stocks propped for a while longer then so be it.

That divergence on Tom's chart is going to collapse. Human instinct for survival, guarantees it.