Final quarter of 2012 will mark the beginning of an economic downturn that will last till 2015/2016 : Ray Barros

Could you guess what chart is this? Does it look familiar to you?  Give you a clue, some say that this index is the barometer of the world's stock market.
You are right.  It is the S&P500.  Each candle represents a year.  This chart spans 1928 up till today.  It captured this view from the ThinkorSwim broker that I recently signed up.  The data from this broker goes much back from any other software that I have.  Kudos to them.
I attended a free 1 day seminar by Ray Barros yesterday.  Mr Ray Barros is a multi-millionaire retired fund manager who is residing in Hong Kong nowadays.  He believes that the final quarter of 2012 will mark the beginning of an economic downturn that will last till 2015/2016.
Do you believe that?
Lets look at the chart.  What is the trend?  It is a clear up trend.  From 1999 till today, there does not seem to have any trends.  It seems to be caught in range.  Mr Barros, being bearish, thinks that it is possible that the S&P breaks the lows of 2008/9.
I tend to be bias towards the upside.  Newton teaches that a body continues in the same direction unless acted on my an external force.  Similarly TA101 teaches that the higher probability of any consolidation is to continue in its original direction.  This implies a breakout to the upside is more likely than a breakdown to the downside.  This is common TA foundational knowledge.
Now, how should we trade?  Up or down?
I am a trend trader.  I am not in the business of forecasting what is going to happen.  But I will and am preparing myself to react to the market.  Meaning, if the markets go up, I follow.  If it comes down, I cut loss and flip my position to the downside.  Along the way, I will be grateful for stocks that reaches my profit targets.  Of course profit target > cut loss.  This is the life of a trend trader.  No guessing.  Simply follow the rules.