Last week, the S&P 500 put an end to its streak of weekly losses, despite giving back some gains on Friday. Thursday provided the big catalyst, with the ECB’s announcement of its bold new monetary stimulus plan. Investors were cheered and soothed for the moment. And U.S. fundamentals still look strong.

U.S. stocks found support once again last week and rallied on strong volume. Of course, the main catalyst was the FOMC policy statement on Wednesday that maintained its dovish language with a pledge of considerable time before raising the fed funds rate and adding that it would be patient as it begins the process of normalizing monetary policy. The result was yet another classic V-bottom. Ho, ho, ho. Say hello to Santa Claus.

Although the stock market displayed weakness last week as I suggested it would, bulls aren’t going down easily. In fact, they’re going down swinging, absorbing most of the blows delivered by hesitant bears. Despite holding up admirably when weakness was both expected and warranted, and although I still see higher highs ahead, I am still not convinced that we have seen the ultimate lows for this pullback. A number of signs point to more weakness ahead.

Today’s market was strong with lots of volume to open the week and close the quarter.  The strongest index of the day was the Russell 2000, up 1.8%, followed by the S&P 500, up 0.8%, and the NASDAQ, up 0.7%.  NYSE volume was a strong 810 million.  The S&P 500 squeaked out a narrow 0.7% gain for the month, which is better than the NASDAQ’s 2.5% drop and the Russell 2000’s 1% drop.  The biotechnology ETF, IBB, delivered an exceptionally strong perfo