As the debate over the ability of equities to make new highs continued, Peter Toogood of City Financial warned on CNBC that after another month or so of gains, stocks face a “reassessment.”

He observed that consumers globally are burdened with debt and lacking in confidence, and he candidly said market fundamentals “stink” and called equity markets “very, very expensive.”

In contrast, veteran trader Art Cashin, of UBS, saw markets as “behaving well” based on optimism about another bailout of Greece spilling over into the U.S., and he ventured that if the S&P can make a new high, markets will be “in great shape.”

Bob Pisani noted that Dow theorists are bothered by the fact that Transports are close to support and not confirming the health of Industrials, but Cashin demurred, saying, “Let’s let it happen,” before drawing conclusions.

Anthony O’Brien, European rate strategist at Morgan Stanley is in the camp that global interest rates are in store for a rise in the range of 60-80 basis points, based on analysis of term premia.

Challenged to identify any source of “escape velocity’ in any of the leading economies, O’Brien is not impressed with “soft” U.S. data, because, “We’re at ‘very extreme’ levels with bond yields, and now we’re moving to something which is just ‘extreme’.”

With the dollar at a four-month low, Michael Every of Rabobank warned that traders who step in now “could be catching a falling knife,” but the dollar is likely to rise again in the second half of this year.

Every predicted that further stimulus is probably forthcoming from the Bank of Japan, but he sarcastically quipped that actual stimulus tends to fall short of indications from the speeches of Mr. Kuroda.

Asked to name a currency he would buy, Every advised traders to avoid all currencies because “Absolutely every central bank wants to see a weak currency at the same time.”

He finds a potential for “a tooth-and claw FX war in the near future.” He added that the pension and insurance sectors “have been crying out for higher yields for many years now.”

A cautious note comes from Axel Merk, President and CIO of Merk Investments, interviewed from Palo Alto, who said he’s not concerned about over-valuation as much as about “unrest in currency and bond markets that will spill over into the equity markets, and the catalyst is going to be the Federal Reserve, trying to engineer an exit. I’m not suggesting they will succeed. Volatility will rise, and equity prices will have to go lower.”

He advised avoiding both stocks and bonds, but with volatility low, this would suggest the VIX at 13 is worth a look.

Finally, with Gulf state officials at the White House, Dennis Gartman, of The Gartman Letter, dismissed the meetings as “a photo-op” that will resolve nothing and have no impact on prices, but “the Saudis clearly have won, they have put the fear of God into the frackers” and a price of $60 for WTI, $65 for brent, is right for maintaining current production but not enticing new production, and he doubt that the bankers of Texas will allow more production.

He concluded, “Everybody’s happy,” including consumers and frackers; “not such a bad place to be.”