Predicting peaks and troughs in the business cycle is not
easy:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/is-the-economy-overdue-for-a-recession/519180/
Bull Markets and Equity Prices
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-10/this-bull-market-isn-t-as-old-as-some-seem-to-think
Related:
Robert Samuelson observes:
“What history teaches is disquieting. It is that the
quest for unending prosperity is doomed to fail. Indeed, it may backfire.
Periodic recessions and bear markets perform a useful, if distasteful,
function. They remind people of risk; they restrain inflation. Too many
setbacks, of course, transform a desirable discipline into social tragedy. What
is the optimal mix of recessions and expansions? This is a hard, perhaps
impossible, question to answer, but economists ought to be trying and aren’t.
The trouble with thinking that expansions don’t die of
old age is that they do — not on any predictable schedule but simply as a
practical matter. Ignoring this holds out the false promise that some ideal set
of policies can sustain economic expansion forever. It can’t.”
FRBSF ECONOMIC LETTER: Will the Economic Recovery
Die of Old Age?
http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/el2016-03.pdf