If you remember right off the bat, the market was down about 10 percent in the first month or so of 2016.

“Sell everything Brexit.”

About a week after Brexit we rallied back to about where we were.

“Sell everything, Trump elected.” The Dow rallied 600 points.

“Hillary is going to be elected.”

The pollsters were wrong and so were the betters in Vegas. The only people who got it right were my neighbors at the hardware store. They had already ordered a big Trump cake to celebrate. The pollsters should have listened to them!

What does all of this mean?

It means that no one knows.

And I mean no one. When you see in the press “Dow 50,000” or “Dow 6000,” just remember that those are guesses. No one knows. Build your investments to fit your risk and get on with your life.

I just love this stuff.

People ask me, “What is going to happen?” I give them the Warren Buffett answer. “I feel like the markets are going to be higher in five years.” I tell them that even a smart guy like me doesn’t know. (My dog thinks I’m smart.)

OK, let us take a look at what the stock market indexes did. I say that because these numbers do not adequately explain what happened. I use results to include dividends if you had owned the particular index.

The Dow was up about 16.5 percent. (After being down 10 percent to start the year!) The Standard and Poor’s 500 stock index was up almost 12 percent. The Nasdaq was up about 8 percent. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks was up more than 21 percent and the S&P Midcap index of middle-sized companies was up almost 21 percent. See, you worried all year for nothing!

Now, having said all of that, not all stocks or investments did well in 2016. A few of the big names did great, but some were down for the year. It was interesting to watch.

As I said, no one knows what is going to happen, but this is what I think. The markets will do what they do. President Barack Obama was one of the worst anti-business presidents and look how well the markets did during his reign. Stock markets do not listen to anybody.

Even though I tell them I don’t know, people still want to know what I think. I think that Europe looks interesting. By most measurements stocks over there are cheap relative to the U.S. The problem is that there are going to be a lot of political happenings over there in the coming months that could have really bad or really good effects on those markets.

There is some talk about France pulling out of the European Union and going back to the Franc. There are rumblings everywhere over there. Depending on what happens in the coming months, Europe could be a really good or a really bad investment idea.

It’s all about profits here in the U.S. markets. If companies continue to do fairly well then our markets could be OK.

I’ll be honest with you, I have been in this business for many years and I have never seen a market that is as resilient as this market.

I mean it seems like the more bad news, the better the markets do. The trend is up and it takes something really significant to break trends.

We also have to realize that even at a seemingly anemic growth rate of 2 percent, in the United States that translates into billions and billions of dollars.

We have “THE” economy in the world. We also seem to have the market that foreign investors, at least today, love. They just keep shipping the money in.

My only issue is valuation. We financial people love those words.

Valuation.

Nothing looks cheap to me. The deal is that it could get more expensive. Markets don’t go straight up, but ...

I was busy studying biology in the Man Cave the other evening when my wife came in looking for trouble. (She is a scuba diver so you gotta take care because of the knife and everything.)

Anyway, I told her I was studying biology and had a shark story. She raised those eyebrows and said “Oh yea?” I said, “Do you know what you get when you crossbreed a shark and a cow?”

She looked at me deadpan. I said, “I don’t know either, but you probably shouldn’t try to milk it.”

She doesn’t think I’m funny.

Howie Pentony is a Portersville client portfolio manager.