The longest bull market rally in history has further to run – but investors may wish to start to build cash positions before next year.

The message from Tom Elliott, deVere Group’s Senior International Investment Strategist, comes after the S&P 500 index reached a new all-time high late August, and recorded its longest ever rally (which began in March 2009).

Mr Elliott comments: “Wall Street is celebrating the longest stock market rally in history. One suspects it has further to go, given that the current defining features of the U.S. economy - strong growth and a cautious Fed - are an investor’s dream.

“This happy combination can be seen in last week’s upward revision to second quarter U.S. GDP growth estimates, to 4.2%, which comes just a week after Fed chair Jay Powell promised caution over the pace of interest rate hikes next year in his address at Jackson Hole -- although he did as good as confirm two more rate hikes this year, in September and December.

“Furthermore, global stock and credit market valuations are more attractive than at any point this year, thanks to corporate earnings growth outpacing share price growth.”

He continues: “But while the outlook for Wall Street over the coming months appears good, as we go into 2019 investor sentiment towards the U.S. stock market may change sharply.

“Cautious investors may want to start building up cash positions, and so take advantage of any sell-off.

“After all, the Fed’s caution is justified: many economists suspect that behind the current GDP growth spurt are temporary boosts to the economy, such as tax cuts and strong exports of goods ahead of the imposition of counter tariffs by America’s trading partners.”

He goes on to say: “Then we have political risk, whether over trade negotiations, North Korea, Iran, and the risk of the impeachment of Donald Trump, should the Democrats win control of the Senate in the mid-term Congressional elections.

“But perhaps the biggest risk to investors is the steady draining away of global liquidity, as central banks end or - in the case of the Fed, actually put into reverse - their quantitative easing policies.”

Mr Elliott concludes: “A diversified multi-asset portfolio remains the best protection against unpredictable markets.  This should contain exposure to global equities and bonds, with property, gold and cash also included. After all, a 2% return on dollar cash isn’t to be sneezed at.”

(Source: deVere Group)

Do you dream of becoming a Bitcoin billionaire? A brand new tool could be just what you need to make the best investment choices. Using detailed historical data across the past 14 months, Cryptocurrencies: Past, Present and Future makes cutting-edge predictions for the future of the top 10 virtual currencies.

Using an exclusive, handcrafted algorithm, this Cryptocurrency predictor feeds historical data on price, trade volume, market cap and online popularity through a variety of analytical tools, including a Recurrent Neural Network, to forecast the exact rise and fall of ten chart-topping cryptocurrencies.

The ten virtual currencies monitored within the piece include:

• Bitcoin
• Ethereum
• Ripple
• Bitcoin Cash
• Litecoin
• Cardano
• NEO
• Stellar
• EOS
• IOTA

If you’re concerned about being overwhelmed by numbers, all of the cryptocurrencies are explained in a handy, bitesize format. What’s more, the numerical information is displayed in easy-to-read data visualisations, allowing you to compare cryptocurrencies side-by-side.

Price: projected change from 11th March 2018 to 6th May 2018

Despite the value of cryptocurrencies being constantly on the move, the algorithm reveals that Bitcoin Cash will skyrocket by $1,247.73 per unit to $2,209.68 if it continues on its predicted path - so is definitely one to look at if you’re tempted to invest.

Similarly, Chinese-produced NEO looks another strong contender for most valuable currency in the near future, with a projected increase of 145%.

Ethereum, meanwhile, is highly encouraged to be avoided, since it is charted to lose the most value, falling by a staggering $237.79 per unit. It doesn’t have the biggest percentage drop, though. That dubious honour belongs to Stellar, which is predicted to fall a shocking 87% in the next two months.

Market Cap: projected change from 11th March 2018 to 6th May 2018

With Market Cap (Price multiplied by Circulating Supply), we’d expect the price to somewhat influence the projected value and percentage change. But what is even more interesting is how much changes in price influence the Market Cap.

As you would expect, Bitcoin Cash’s ceiling looks ready to rocket up by more than $20 billion to accommodate an increase in price - as we saw from the previous table. Similarly, NEO’s leap in unit value will be accompanied by the Market Cap expanding by an impressive 162%.

It’s more bad news for both Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin and Stellar creator Jed McCaleb though - as Ethereum’s overall cap is projected to plummet by $26 billion to reflect the drop in price, along with Stellar bottoming out with a devastating 90% fall.

Online Popularity: projected change from 11th March 2018 to 6th May 2018

It’s not all market based, however. A detailed exploration of Google Trends data makes it possible to assess the Online Popularity of each cryptocurrency.

This time round, NEO has pipped Bitcoin Cash to the post with the highest search volume both historically and projected in the future, topping even the most well known of cryptocurrencies at a predicted 268% interest and suggesting a rapidly growing interest. On the other hand, IOTA has seen the largest percentage drop off, slated to fall by 53% over the next few months - which might be emblematic of the smaller cryptocurrencies catching the eye but then fizzling out shortly after.

Trade Volume: projected change from 11th March 2018 to 6th May 2018

Finally, Trade Volume projections reveal that Bitcoin (not Bitcoin Cash) is on a path to increase its projected value by a whopping $1.4 billion - the highest of all of the cryptocurrencies.

Though it may not have topped the chart this time round, Bitcoin Cash is still keeping up its high hopes across the board with a promising projection of increasing its volume by more than $1.3 billion by May - a 300% increase. Rounding off the success stories is fan favourites NEO, their trade volume set to soar by a remarkable 563% percentage increase - something we’re sure that the NEO team and potential investors will be thrilled by.

On a less happy note, however, Ethereum still appears set to bomb with a forecasted volume drop of $118 million - the biggest fall of any listed competitor.

More bad news is set for Stellar too, with a -67% percentage drop in trade volume predicted on the horizon. This follows a string of percentage decreases for Stellar. Of course we are speculating, but this could be due to the accessibility of this particular cryptocurrency as it cannot be bought via credit card and can only be obtained through a cryptocurrency exchange - quite a risky move if you ask us!

(Source: Cryptocurrenciesprediction)