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"De gustibus non est disputandum." - There is no disputing matters of taste.

Coming attraction

February will be BORDEAUX MONTH.  We'll explore why Bordeaux is often referred to as the "King of Wines."

Haiti Relief

Partners in Health, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing medical care and food to poor persons in Haiti, has been on-the-ground in Haiti for over 20 years.  You can donate to Partners in Health to help Haiti relief operations at pih.org.  Other options include RedCross.org and ClintonBushHaitiFund.org.

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Welcome!  This blog is focused on finding value-priced wines that offer excellent taste and quality.                      Please feel free to add comments about the posts and make suggestions for other excellent wines that can be purchased for under $25.

Format

Most of the posts will focus on a single wine.  Every couple weeks, I'll try to summarize all of the wines discussed so far for a particular type of wine like Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon.  Occasionally, I'll offer a news article or a "How to" article on various topics (tasting wine, collecting wine, storing wine, etc.).  The posts are tagged with keywords that are listed on the right side below.

Monday, January 18, 2016

2016 Market Outlook

My market outlook for 2016 is fairly simple. From a technical perspective, the charts for all market indices are in dire straits.

Short-term outlook - The S&P 500 is down 8% in the first two weeks of the year, which is the worst start in history. However, the market is currently very oversold. Thus, I'm short-term bullish and predict a short-term bounce until the end of January. Also, I expect that oil prices will also rebound in the next two weeks.

Intermediate-term outlook - Although it will be painful, I predict that we'll be in a formal bear market - with a decline of at least 20% to S&P 1708 - within three months (by April 15, 2016). After a short-term rebound, oil prices will likely continue a sharp decline to the range between $18 and $24 by April 15.

Long-term outlook - Based on market weakness, I expect economic conditions to deteriorate with a possible recession on the horizon. The S&P will likely decline to 1575 before the end of 2016, with a year-end target below 1750. In addition, I predict that oil prices will find a solid bottom in the first half of 2016. After that, oil prices should recover to some degree in the second half of the year.