The market is stuck with competing feedback loops. On the bearish side, record fund inflows suggest individual investors have gone all-in on a stock market rally. Being part of consensus thinking seldom pays when it comes to investing. Then again, institutional investors have been betting against stocks because of "mom and pop" all year, and its been a losing trade. Something's gotta give.

Sam Stovall of S&P; Capital IQ isn't prepared to bet against stocks here. In the attached clip, Stovall notes that November through April has been the strongest six months of the year on average for almost any timeframe historically. "Investors lean cyclically," pushing money into consumer discretionary and industrial material stocks while defensive sectors like big pharma tend to underperform.

It's always hard to make an argument for investing based on the calender with a straight face. That's especially true in 2013 after those who sold in May and went away missed a 10% rally in the S&P; 500 (^GSPC). Investing on things that happen on average is just as bad a money management strategy as using the calender.

Six longs months before the latest round of bureaucratic brinksmanship shut the government and nearly resulted in default, former Reagan budget director David Stockman was turning heads by proclaiming it was Sundown in America. In spite of lofty stock prices, he argued, the U.S. economy was stagnant, hiring was non-existent, and the peak in household income was reached 25 years ago.

Since then, Stockman's theory has been both glorified and vilified, and to some degree imitated by the Chinese who recently mocked the U.S. during the recent debt showdown as being a beggar nation.

So what's the deal? The U.S. clearly has issues, but are our debts and problems truly insurmountable?

"The U.S. is the strongest, most diversified, economy in the world -- and there is no number two," says Hank Smith, the chief investment officer at Haverford. "China is so far behind the U.S. it's not even worth talking about."

For the record, the $16 trillion U.S. economy is currently about 25% larger than China's. Given the latter's rapid growth, the Asian giant will likely become the world's largest economy as soon as 2016.

But even if and when that happens, Smith argues that, bruised image or not, the U.S. and the dollar will still be the world's top pick.