Seriously, a Recession?!

Like, with this optimism...?

"DOES this look like a recession to you?" recalls Zach Scheidt, editor of The Daily Edge, in Addison Wiggin's Daily Reckoning.

That was the question Fahad Khalid from Jaguar Analytics asked over and over again as he showed visuals of what is going on with our economy.

"Seriously, does this look like a recession to you?"

This fiery presentation happened at the TradersEXPO conference that I attended in Las Vegas last week. And Fahad's insights were easily one of the standout moments of the week...which is why I want to share the story with you today.

Everywhere you look, the mainstream media is using their platform as an outlet for bears to "call the top" of this 10-year bull market.

Billionaire investor Steve Cohen sees a bear market heading our way – MarketWatch

Billionaire investor Jim Mellon: Sharp sell-off in US stocks is the start of a 'very major correction' – CNBC

Blackstone Billionaire Tony James Expects Stocks to Drop 20% – Fortune

There is no shortage of prominent billionaires making bold claims like this in the mainstream media.

And with every passing day that this market doesn't go into full correction mode, more and more claims just like this will be made. Because after all, the bull market has to end eventually, right?

Well guess what the mainstream isn't telling you...

They're all wrong!

That's right.

Every single person that's made a "bold prediction" about the end of the bull market has been nothing but wrong for 10 years. And because of it they've missed out on thousands – if not millions – of Dollars.

And the mainstream media does nothing to stop these horribly wrong predictions from being spread, because after all, they don't make money when you make money. They make money based on the number of eyeballs glued to TVs!

"Instead of focusing on the top headlines on CNBC or Bloomberg, I encourage you to dig a bit deeper and look at the underlying data, or at least read an outlet that does," Fahad said.

And I agree. And I hope you can rely on The Daily Edge to be that outlet.

If you did, you'd find that the current state of the stock market and economy are both well better off than they're being portrayed.

GDP is continuing to grow at a very robust rate. This is a "big picture" view of our economy and right now it's very positive.

Consumer confidence is near multi-year highs. This is your typical "man on the street" perspective – not necessarily investment related – which shows that even with the market pulling back, the average consumer is still spending money and is very optimistic about the future.

The Small Business Optimism Index (which includes owners of restaurants, gas stations, nail salons, etc.) remains extremely high and just continued its 2-year run of historic readings in October.

And weekly jobless claims – the number of people filing for benefits because they got laid off – keeps drifting lower and lower. That's a strong sign of growth as companies are profitable and need workers.

Add it all up, and you have a very clear answer to Fahad's question...

"Does this look like a recession to you?"

The answer is absolutely not!

The bottom line is that the fundamentals in this economy are just too strong, which is why I believe now is actually an excellent time to put money to work in today's stock market.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that the market is going to rebound from its most recent slump tomorrow...or this week...or even this month! No one has a crystal ball and no one knows exactly for sure what the market's going to do right now.

But as Fahad explained, this isn't the type of situation that precedes a bear market.

So no matter what you're hearing from popular financial news outlets, know that we're actually in a quite safe place to invest right now.