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Last week, we ended down across the board. The Nasdaq, Dow, and S&P closed a combined 8.3% lower, and it had the bears coming off the sidelines and getting ready to make their move.

But the bulls weren’t giving up that easily, not Friday, not today, maybe not ever.

We’ve got a way to go before we’re in bear market, although we’re tapdancing on the edge of a correction, at least when it comes to the Nasdaq Composite. But we still have lower to go, if we end up going lower, that is.

The bears are looking to get in as the hedging unwinds, chasing Big Tech lower, and election madness begins to ramp up.

We could be headed lower… but they key word here is could, and where the markets are headed next lay in the hands of one very specific group: the retail investors.The Battle of the Bulls and the Bears Rages On

I’m not the kind of guy to say I told you so, but if I was, I’d sure be saying it now.

That’s a joke, kind of. Because I did tell you that Tesla was the poster boy for irrational exuberance and “that one stock is a bellwether for the entire market.”

I told you that on Friday, August 28, 2020, right here in Total Wealth in an article titled “The First Bellwether You Need to Watch to Avoid a Portfolio-Wrecking Loss.“

When Tesla rolled over, when it “corrected,” meaning fell 10%, that was the bell ringing out its warning, that was the time to make sure your stops were locked and loaded, that was the turning point for the market.

As a bellwether it worked perfectly. Tesla hit an all-time high on Monday August 31, two days after I said to watch it. It was up a remarkable 495% in eight months. The next day it fell 4.66%. The next day, Wednesday, as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were making all-time highs, Tesla fell another 5.82%. The warning couldn’t have been any clearer or louder, while markets were making new highs Tesla was down 10% in correction mode.

We know what happened the next day…

Valuations have been stretched and it’s high time some of that air gets let out of the bubble. The rally could go higher… but it depends on one industry, and that industry could surprise you. Click here to watch.

Because it’s my nature, and because it’s prudent, and because sometimes reality bites, for the last couple of months I’ve typically interspersed my positive assessment of equity markets and forecasts why they’re going higher, with negatives, citing pitfalls, white, gray, and black swans all around us.

Still, the forecasts have been bullish.

Markets, equity markets in particular, are at an incredibly vulnerable place, today and all this week. What happens, which we’ll find out on or before Friday’s close, could make or break the market.

Today, the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are in the line of fire, as they virtually face, virtually, the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee.

The big deal today will be about what those mega-cap Tech Kings are asked and how they answer.

In case you missed it, last week the Fed fired a warning shot across the bow of investors who’ve won the bet, so far, the stock market would enjoy a V-shaped recovery and the economy would follow suit.

No, the Fed didn’t upset the applecart on Wednesday. The market tested itself on Wednesday when fear of rapidly rising virus spikes in Arizona, Texas and Florida triggered profit-taking.

The Fed didn’t upset the market on Thursday either. It actually helped stocks rally on the heels of Wednesday’s selloff when it announced all its children, the banks it shepherds, all passed their stress tests.

Banks rallied nicely on Thursday as investors cheered the good news.

But it was fake news.

Everyone knows the Fed’s manipulated interest rates down so low for so long there are no decent yielding investments in the fixed income market unless you’re willing to pay up for junk bonds.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t great yielding investments readily available in other markets.

I’m talking about the stock market. Lots of companies pay dividends to their stockholders.

Some of them pay fat dividends, earn plenty of money regularly to keep paying them, and offer a kicker called appreciation.

Here are three fat dividend yielding stocks you can tuck away in your retirement account, so you actually can retire.

If you’re thinking when you retire you can live off some kind of fixed income portfolio, forget about it.

That’s a myth now.

Sure, there was a time when you could, but that’s gone the way of the dodo bird and free markets.

With the Federal Reserve manipulating interest rates “lower for longer” for decades and lately driving them down to near zero, or maybe busting another myth and turning them negative some time in our future, there’s no way anyone can retire comfortably, or retire at all, on a fixed income portfolio.

Not only isn’t there enough yield to be had, unless you load up of the riskiest bonds out there and good luck with that, you’re at increasing risk of losing money on your fixed income dreams in more ways than you know.

Here’s why and how traditional fixed income investing for your retirement is a bad idea and what to do instead.

To say the market’s been on a tear would be like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch.

Last week the Dow ran up 1,727.87 points to end the week 6.8% higher. That’s half the gain in a good year. The S&P rose 4.9%. And the Nasdaq Composite, on an intraday basis, made a new record high, climbing 3.4% on the week.

All week the “honey badger” (Google: honey badger don’t give a damn) proved it don’t give a damn about China, or protests, or politics, or anything. It just keeps on going, doing what it does, keeps going.

And then on Friday, when the world was expecting the U.S. to lose 8 million jobs in May, the unemployment rate was expected to hit 20%, and the market to keep going anyway, only one out of those three things happened.

The U.S. didn’t lose jobs, it gained 2.5 million jobs. And the UE rate didn’t tick up to 20% from the previous months 14.7%, it fell to 13.3%. Of course, the honey badger did what it does.

Is it “irrational exuberance” or are investors taking a nothing matters and what if it did attitude?

It’s both actually.

Can we talk, about earnings? Let’s.

But, first, listen to what Randall W. Forsyth said to open his column titled Up and Down Wall Street this Saturday in Barron’s. He said, “The good news is the bad news can’t get worse.”

Sadly, it can. That includes earnings.

With more than 90% of S&P 500 companies reporting last week, quarterly earnings look like they’ll be down 13.8% from Q1 2019.

Maybe that’s why markets sold off last week.

The Dow lost 645.90 points on the week, closing down 2.7% at 23,685.42. The S&P 500 closed the week down 2.3%, its worst week since March 20. And the Nasdaq composite closed the week down 1.2%.

What’s interesting, in hindsight, which I’ll get to in a second, is that the Dow dropped 1,083.32 over the first three days of the week, closing Wednesday at 23,247.97, down 516.81, or 2.17% that day.

The hindsight here comes to us courtesy of Sunday’s 60 Minutes show. The big-deal guest interview yesterday was with Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Only, Jerome wasn’t on live yesterday. The show was taped from the Fed’s Washington D.C. headquarters on Wednesday, after the Dow dropped more than 1,000 points over the first three days of trading last week.

It’s not normal for the Fed chairman to grant an interview to 60 Minutes, especially in the middle of a crisis. Did the Chairman offer 60 Minutes the interview? Maybe. Because if markets were to continue getting hit Thursday and Friday, they’d be in bad shape come Monday morning, today, and a further route would be entirely possible.

So, why not tee-up an interview on Wednesday to hedge your bets come Monday.