Phil Davis of Phil's Stock World suggests we're partying like 1999 - and his charts say he may be right

After all this, and a "mere" 50% retrace by the Dow to its 2007 peak, is it really just another 1999-like speculative bubble? Yes, it's very possible. Check out this article by Phil Davis - Options Trader Wrong-Way Weekly Wrap-Up: Party Like It's 1999, at Seeking Alpha, http://seekingalpha.com/article/172112-options-trader-wrong-way-weekly-wrap-up-party-like-it-s-1999. I think he wrote it several days ago but I'm most interested in his big-picture outlook. The charts he shows in this article include a very sobering one of real estate home values as they skyrocketed far above decades-long averages and still haven't dropped much. Also he shows comparisons of the current bear to historical bear markets. I'll include one as a quote below, but read his full article to see how he inflation-adjusts it and discusses it. You'll see why I think Phil has a lot of good insight, even if his Phil's Stock World is mainly for fast-moving options traders. (Though there are areas for swing traders too.). This particular set of comments - if you see through it past the yikes! and humor and focus on the long-term - has some good messages for all folks even if you're not actively investing any portfolio. Here's just a quote to piqué your interest:

This [easy mortgage financing system] allowed Americans to go from promising to pay 2.5 times their annual salaries in 1997 to 5 times their annual salaries for the same exact home in 2007. Again, it's one of those fantastic industries where you can just keep charging people more and more money without giving them anything more that you used to make. By repackaging home ownership as in investment vehicle, clever realtors and mortgage brokers were able to convince Americans that diverting all of their potential savings into a mortgage payment made economic sense. This plan was aided and abetted by the media and Wall Street, who clamored to tell you that Social Security would be bankrupt and you could not possibly save enough money to retire on unless you either put it into housing or put it into the stock market, causing a massive bubble in both.

That's just one of the reasons why there are economic and financial "disconnects" that - I think he's saying - continue to threaten real recovery. Anyway, below is one of his comparison charts, and a cartoon depicting his point about banking bailout imbalances - funny but sad! Now check out his full article for yourselves. And as for his market views - I think they're about what we are seeing, that we are at another major test of where the markets will carve a direction for coming months.