My portfolio was up over 60% last year. I trade solely for myself and am accountable to nobody. In 2007, my portfolio was only up 2% as I saw the credit bubble burst coming but was a tad off on timing. I'm a contrarian. When I saw a vix of 90, that flashed a big time buy signal to me. I haven' t sold yet because I can see a lot more buying power coming into the market in the form of portfolio rebalancing and under-invested portfolio managers. I used to be on the investment committee of a large pension fund. I know how they operate. They usually have a fairly strict stock/bond allocation of say 60/40 and they rebalance quarterly. After the nasty Q4 we just had in the equity market and the parabolic rise in treasuries, they will meet over the next few weeks and decide to sell lots of bonds and buy lots of stock to get their portfolios back to their target asset allocation. This is hundreds of billions. Plus we will see people come back to the equity market as they see the gains and realize they are getting left behind earning 1% in a money market fund. This is psychology and emotions. I plan to sell in about 8 weeks and I'm quite certain that my gain will be 40%+ in a matter of 4 months or less. To me, it's all quite clear. The Fed and US Treasury have everything backstopped and the printing press on full blast. Volatility will get wrung out of this market as it continues to relentlessly grind higher. Every dip will be bought and will be short lived. Is the secular bear over? Absolutely not. But a 90 vix marked a very durable intermediate term bottom and this cyclical bull will be much more powerful than anyone thinks.