Today marks the two-year anniversary of the V-bottom that launched an impressive bull market. Since then, the SPY large cap is up about 95%, while MDY mid cap and IWM small cap are up about 135%. Leading sectors include Basic Materials, Industrials, and Financials, which are each up at least 150%. Pretty impressive.

Editor's note: Publication of What the Market Wants was delayed until today because of some ambiguous results from our sector stats.  David Brown explains this in the sidebar at the end of the newsletter.

Editor's Note: This week's issue of "What the Market Wants" will be published on Tuesday, March 8.

This month marks the first time since July 1 that the first trading day of the month wasn’t an up day. That’s 8 months in a row of money pouring in on the first trading day. Furthermore, recall that July 1 marked a low for the SPY at 101.13 that ended a 2-month correction to the 13-month rally off the March 2009 V-bottom, and launched a new 8-month rally. Is the fun over now?

Economy Struggles To Recover As Middle East Rages

by David Brown, Chief Market Strategist, Sabrient Systems

It’s a nice change of pace to talk about something other than the stock market’s persistent uptrend getting more and more overbought. This week has brought some excitement indeed. As I said the last two weeks, it will pay to be cautious with long positions because such a market can reverse and fall quite quickly.

Mid-East Turmoil Trumps Improving Economy

by David Brown, Chief Market Strategist, Sabrient Systems

Bulls on Wall Street continue to call the shots and have their way. Bears who dare try to venture out of hibernation are smacked back into the cave before they’ve barely seen the light of day. The unshakably bullish action and buy-the-dip mentality has many market observers wondering if it can be sustained, given the struggling economy, moribund housing market, rising food and energy prices, skyrocketing deficit, and persistent unemployment.

Stocks over Bonds, Small Caps over Large

by David Brown, Chief Market Strategist, Sabrient Systems

We’re going to start with what I do know – and then I’ll tell you what I don’t know.

The market reeked of late-day manipulation today as a last-minute push managed to get the Dow back into positive territory, but the S&P500 and Nasdaq couldn’t quite make it. The bulls have staked out their claim and won’t allow anyone to spoil their party...and they have powerful friends.