It has been a week of sparse market-moving news, but what news there was continued to be generally supportive of the market’s slow growth recovery. Remarkably, volatility continues to be very low. Unlike the 6 to 10% gyrations (in both directions) of late 2008 and early 2009, we’ve seen very few days this year when the market has moved more than 1% in either direction.

Perhaps it was the new senator from Massachusetts who let the bears out, but I suppose it was a bit more than that. When the week began on Tuesday, after the Martin Luther King holiday, the bulls were grazing happily on GARP stocks, as contented as California cows.  But then somebody opened that gate, and the bears roared through and the bulls ran for cover.