The purpose of the following post is to pull back the lens to better think about the possible secular set ups for US equity indices, US government bond yields, & nominal GDP. By taking the big picture into view and ignoring the daily noise, the hope is that we can more accurately contextualize the present shorter term trends. Keep in mind, the analysis of the big picture is used to help determine whether or not the present is a good risk taking environment and shouldn't be used for short term positioning. Long term charts for US equity indices support a continued bias toward risk-taking. The chart above applies a standard 50 period relative strength index (RSI) on the quarterly price of the DJIA along with major trendlines to identify secular trend changes. The three green arrows on the chart mark a time when price first made a new multi-decade high after the RSI 50 quarterly moving average began sloping upwards. By combining a new decade hi...