When hearing or reading people discuss what the market will do in the future, how long a particular trend will last, etc., it reminds me of people betting in Las Vegas. My wife and I went to Las Vegas a number of times back in the 1980s when she was a programmer for a travel agency owned by one of the airlines so that she got the same travel deals as airline employees. We were able to fly to Las Vegas for $20 round trip. Neither of us is interested in gambling, but the fact that Las Vegas is a 24/7 town, we could go see interesting sites such as Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, etc., and come back at all hours to find restaurants open.
In the hotel room (we stayed at a round building at the end of the downtown street with casinos), there was a TV channel that discussed how to gamble. I watched a bit of it and it always sounded very much like trying to predict the stock market.
One thing that I have always found disturbing about the stock market is that the word "fear" is ALWAYS used in the media. It doesn't matter if the market is doing well or not, investors always seem to fear something going wrong - a good trend ending, a bad trend not ending, etc.
I can honestly say that I have no idea what the market is going to do, but I can certainly guess if I studied trends and that sort of thing.
We decided to insulate ourselves as much as possible from the stock market when we set up our retirement. The tension is between being "safe" but possibly running short in the face of a future inflation, and losing serious money when it is most needed because the stock market is down when you need to cash in. We have done our best to balance that. As for financial advice, that is so individual that what seems right for us may not be the right thing for anybody else.
Edit: An interesting thing that I saw as my co-workers and I approached retirement age is that those who talked the talk as if they were "in the know", seemed the least financially ready to retire, and many are still working today. I never claimed special knowledge except to always spend less than I earn and never go into debt. I retired several years early.
Tony