As a CNBC contributor, most of what one says during interviews is documented and archived for the world to see and judge. Sometimes it's good and other times it's bad. Looking back on the last few years, I found myself constantly fighting with other contributors and market participants about the direction of the stock market. From late 2009 until just recently, most of my comments (If not all) have been bullish, at times extremely bullish. But as I have said to my good friend Rick Santelli many times, "Trade the market you have, not the market you want." The market we have now is one in which we must say thank you and monetize gains, for the time being. There is an old saying from the trading floor, "There are bulls, bears and pigs…Pigs get slaughtered!"
We are in the final stages of the first leg of a great bull market, maybe one of the greatest ever. The characteristics of the final stage is an expansion of the multiple, a contraction of earnings and shift in monetary policy. Another very important, yet overlooked, variable is the relationship between the equity market and the "changing of the president" cycle. As it turns out, when we see a shift in the Oval Office the stock market becomes very volatile and finds the catalyst for corrections. Market historians will remember 2008, 2000, 1992, 1988 even 1980 as bad years for the equity markets. This is not a coincidence; Capital markets do not like uncertainty and a changing of the guard presents the ultimate uncertainly for capital.