Inflation safari - bulls, bears and the elephant in the room

US stocks rose last week as Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen floated the idea of a reprieve from interest-rate hikes while JPMorgan Chase posted robust growth in quarterly profit.

If earnings from big banks such as Bank of America and industrial giants such as General Electric live up to expectations, more record highs could be set this week. And yet, some strategists say, it's hard to deny the sense of an ending to the bull market in trading patterns.

The recovery from the Great Recession has been nothing if not uno…