Consensus view is modest optimism for 2020

This is the time of year where I like to read and listen to market forecasts by the "experts" about what's in store for the market in the year to come. From what I gather, I get the sense of modest optimism at best. The expectation is for modest GDP growth and still low bond yields that should see the US 10 year trade in a range from about 1.8% -2.2%. I get the sense that recession fears have dissipated but are not totally gone as there is still lingering worries about trade tensions and political risks. There's also still the strong notion of  the"late cycle" stage of the market we are in and that keeps the herd sensitive to negative events. So although optimism is building, the majority are still watching for that bear market pot to boil and that's contrarian bullish for the market in the LT. In the ST though, there are concerns.

I've seen indicators showing that long exposure from the hedge fund community rapidly increased in December which was the complete opposite of last year when markets were tanking. These clowns are weak longs and I bet were pretty much forced to buy as the market broke out due to FOMO. But mark my words, they are going to bail en masse at some point because deep down, they don't believe in the bull market. That's probably going to cause a 3-5% correction at some point within the first 3 months of the year if I had to guess. In my last post I mentioned that I expected to see the market cool off, but it hasn't yet probably because of continued top picking behavior as evident from the ST trader types and hedgers in the options market. I had thought that maybe they had given up but it turned out it was only for a day. At some point though,  they will give up for good and when they do the market will be ripe for a rug pull to clean out the weak longs that appear to be in the market right now. But this is all ST talk. LT the conditions that I expect to see when the stock market is at the ultimate top will probably look like this:

1. The global economy will appear to be in great shape or at least well on the mend
2. The investing public will have returned en masse as evident by fund flows and other excess such as a large spike in margin debt will be evident. 
3. There will be a popular view that recessions may be a thing of the past and therefore the bull market can continue indefinitely.
4. Stock market bears will be chastised and ridiculed.

We are clearly not at this point yet.