As I’ve often written, whenever you hear another ridiculous argument for why “it’s different this time,” it pays to listen to voices like those of Dr. John Hussman, portfolio manager of the Hussman Funds. Rather than just making up whatever case conveniently justifies a happy conclusion, he frames the debate from his unique, statistically rigorous perspective.

In today’s weekly market comment, Hussman shreds the laughable arguments that attempt to justify a continued, broad-based bull run. He concludes:

“This will end badly. In recent weeks, we’ve started to observe what people used to call ‘shooters’ back in the ’60s and ’70s -- stocks that rise by 30-40% or more in a single day. That sort of action is characteristic of a speculative blowoff. The difficulty is that such blowoffs can continue over the short term, but also tend to end abruptly. I have no strong view about the very short term, except that we’re observing an instance of fairly extreme overvalued, overbought, overbullish conditions, which have typically been followed by deep and abrupt losses (but usually only after some period of short-term continuation in the range of 1-3%).”

In my favorite section of Hussman’s piece, he deals with the common misperception that earnings equal dividends. Remain cautious and very picky about the stocks you own.