[by:¿É¿ÉÓ¢ÓïÍø¡«m.moreplr.com]
[00:00.00]Stock prices just keep going up and up. 
[00:02.57]The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record high yesterday, 
[00:06.51]and so did a closely watched broader index, the S&P 500.
[00:10.18]To help explain what's behind the latest surge on Wall Street, 
[00:13.33]we are joined now via Skype from Richmond, Virginia by Roben Farzad. 
[00:16.44]He is the host of the radio program "Full Disclosure."
[00:19.01]So, a lot of people on Wall Street are talking about the latest buying events in Japan. 
[00:23.50]Their stock index, the Nikkei, was up nearly 5 percent just yesterday after their government there announced a new stimulus program. 
[00:30.93]So what did it do, and why does that matter here?
[00:34.00]Because we're so connected at this point. 
[00:36.71]All these central banks across the globe are flooding the plane with money to get people to go out and take risks, take chances. 
[00:44.15]The Bank of Japan actually goes out and buys equities in the Japanese stock market, which has been moribund for so long.
[00:51.00]Here in the United States, the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates near zero for the better part of six years now. 
[00:57.97]And on top of that, they have $3.5 trillion of emergency bond buying measures. 
[01:02.42]So, there's a lot of cheap money going around stoking people to get into real estate and riskier bonds and riskier assets like stocks.
[01:10.07]So, this week we learned our own economy grew 3.5 percent during the third quarter of 2014. 
[01:15.33]So, how much of a factor is that in the market's recent rise?
[01:18.92]The markets really right now are looking at the big intervening variable, which is the Federal Reserve's largesse. 
[01:25.20]Like I said, six years of emergency low interest rates ¨C 
[01:29.22]can anybody remember when it cost 6 percent or 7 percent to take out a mortgage 
[01:33.47]or when you could get a little over four pointd on a government bond or a treasury bond? 
[01:38.42]It's just not really in the institutional memory.
[01:40.86]So, when you get not too hot but not too cold economic indicators, 
[01:45.57]and by extension the Federal Reserve is telegraphing that it's going to sit on its hands, 
[01:49.80]maybe well into 2015, there's this perception there's¨C 
[01:53.50]that there's more room to run for the market.
[01:55.41]October was a pretty wild ride on Wall Street. 
[01:57.74]Earlier last month, the Dow had the biggest weekly decline in more than two years. 
[02:02.06]Then it came roaring back. What's behind all this volatility?
[02:04.96]Again, what's behind the lack of volatility over the past three or four years? 
[02:09.79]We have dodged so many bullets from 2008 and 2009 where there was an outright collapse. 
[02:14.71]I believe the market peak to trough fell 55 ¨C 57 percent. And then Greece collapses. 
[02:19.56]And then we have the debt showdown and debt debacle here, and the fiscal cliff. 
[02:24.16]And now you have worries about electoral uncertainty, and there are whispers of global deflation.
[02:29.28]There are lots of things at play, 
[02:31.18]and I think investors have developed a person amount of scar tissue, 
[02:35.03]the ones that are still in the market realize that it's ¡ª 
[02:37.18]when you see something approaching a correction¨C 
[02:40.24]and we didn't even hit a full correction ¡ª 
[02:41.74]that there are people that are going to step in and buy.
[02:43.96]All right. Speaking of participation, we came across some interesting numbers 
[02:46.68]showing a specifically lower percentage of Americans own stock now than they did a dozen years ago. 
[02:52.54]So who dropped out, and what are the bigger repercussions?
[02:55.36]You worry about the solvency of Social Security 
[02:57.91]and people's retirements in general in an era where government debts maybe are not sustainable. 
[03:03.57]People really en masse looked at what happened in 2000 with Y2K. 
[03:09.56]They got their hearts broken with the tech crash.
[03:11.58]And then again in 2007, when they hesitatingly came back to the market, 
[03:15.27]we get the mother of all economic collapses with the Great Recession and the market getting cut in half. 
[03:20.34]And so, it's kind of a like a case of fool me thrice; 
[03:22.86]I'm not going to be that sucker.
[03:24.18]And so even with the numbers being as spectacular as they are in this five-plus-year bull market, 
[03:30.49]you're getting a lot of people that are saying no, 
[03:32.55]I'm not going back to that asset class.
[03:34.98]You're going to have to show me much more security and much better risk reward for me to get my money back. 
[03:39.79]And that's not helping their case. They're going to need the market to help them into retirement.
[03:44.84]All right, Roben Farzad, the host of the radio program "Full Disclosure." Thanks so much.
My pleasure.