Volatility reigned in January on elevated volume as stock investors shifted their focus from global events to U.S. earnings reports, which have ranged from amazing (e.g., Apple) to crushing (e.g., Microsoft). Although the earnings reports have brought plenty of surprises, the volatility is no surprise, as I and many other market commentators predicted for the New Year.

Once again, stocks have shown some inkling of weakness. But every other time for almost three years running, the bears have failed to pile on and get a real correction in gear. Will this time be different?

Repeating Friday’s market performance, today, the S&P 500 sold off in the last 30 to 40 minutes, giving up its entire daily gain for a loss of 0.27%.  Nevertheless, it did gain 0.1% last week for its eighth consecutive weekly gain. 

Jobs

Fear Factor Up . . . So is the Market Despite Mid-East Turmoil

by David Brown, Chief Market Strategist, Sabrient Systems

The market shrugged off the serious instability in the Middle East today, after tanking on those fears on Friday. The Dow, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 were all up, with the S&P 500 up the most, +0.77%.

The market posted a big red candle today. It was much overdue … and in fact needed for a healthy market. It simply cannot go up in a straight line and engender confidence among investors. Backing and filling is a necessary aspect of a healthy bull market.

The Energy Sector has demonstrated a surge in technical strength to lead the market higher this week, and at the same time it has surged in the SectorCast rankings.

The market continues to creep upward, with the short-term trend clearly positive albeit on quite low volume.  The S&P 500 remains above its 50-day and 200-day moving average, but as we head into the current week, our concern is about conviction within the marketplace.  The ECRI (Economic Cycle Research Institute) finally gave a positive uptick last week, but it would be early to conclude that we’re on a strong uptrend.

The abundance of news last week -- most with a positive slant -- finally boosted the S&P 500 out of the Channel of Gloom in which it was mired for so long. Not only did the S&P 500 break out of the channel, but it is now threatening the 200-day moving average, having surpassed the 50-day MA last week.

Last week, the market was very selective, with only Large-cap Growth in positive territory -- think Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Amazon (Nasdaq:  AMZN), and American Express (NYSE: AXP). All other cap/styles were negative -- and the smaller you were, the more you lost. In fact, this entire month the market has beat up on small-caps with its "the smaller you are, the more you lose" bias.