Even a unforeseen surprise , will not surprise.

Volatility to continue, within slightly elevated levels. Not a high degree of correlation with participants. "Rational Optimizers" in charge of this market. The real estate market here in Florida is another issue. LOL! It is funny to watch how people chase returns after the fact, and leverage up with an asset that has already run up. Sound familiar? Reasonably valued Cash generating assets, with good balance sheets are king. Find cash flows that you can quantifiably confirm have the fundamentals beneath them to confidently, and consistently generate expected cash returns.

I am not excited about indices, but even at this point we are not in a "phase" that would be susceptible for a large catastrophic avalanche of volatility. No six sigma or greater events on the horizon within the S&P 500.

Short Term Volatility within expected bounds

Yesterday Dow down 140+. This morning futures down big. To be expected with current news. Market will absorb it and behave within expected volatility parameters; system is not critical and will not "crash" at this point.

I repeat, remember the ABC's that I mentioned earlier. A rigorous application of traditional deep value metrics is, and will be the way to go.

Clarification: Nobody will ever be able to say with certainty that a complex dynamic system will have a six sigma or larger event in a specific time period; the best one can do is understand if the system has reached a point of "self organized criticality" and is then susceptible to a large event. The latter in of itself is of great value as you can hedge, and in parallel the system has reached a point of diminishing returns and decisions regarding asset allocation can be made more effective.

The large complex dynamic system we call the Stock Market is not self-organizing at this point. The system is far from critical. Value has done well as I said it would, and it will continue to do so for as far as I can see. There is no danger of a catastrophic >six sigma failure. A large unforeseen event even equivalent to 9-11 would not have the same effect.

As far as the stock market. Traditional valuation metrics with a priority placed on strong balance sheets and strong cash flows, enabling one to buy a future dollar at a discount today are, and will be the way to go. Stay away from momentum/greater fool concepts.

Taking this into account, passive diversified low expense ETF's come to mind also, if they are exposed to above mentioned parameters. I will be more specific shortly.