Perhaps it was gold breaking the $4000 barrier, or maybe it was the series of record equity market highs even in the teeth of a normally tough season for stocks. It could be the fact that analysts have little economic data to chew on, and Q3 earnings season is just about to gear up. Whatever the cause, the persistent, steady, and forceful rally in pretty much everything over the past six months finally hit the collective consciousness this week. And many were making a direct comparison to the tech boom-cum-bubble in the late 1990s, which of course spectacularly crumpled in the early 2000s. Suddenly everyone from the ... (full story)