that may all be true Tweetie, but it's hard to quantify. Stocks are an investment market where you see the benefit of the majority of middle and upper income American's putting a portion of their pay checks into it every other week -- like coal into an engine -- in the form of 401ks, esops, and other savings and investment plans. For stocks to crash, you need significantly more money coming out of the market for the month than the collective work force puts into the market that month. And that is a lot of juice.

In all my years of analysis and trading the most consistent strategy i have seen is buy dips in cyclical up-trends and selling rallies in cyclical downtrends. I like to win more than lose, but I still let myself get lured into trying to pick a top or a bottom just like everyone else. For me short-term trading inline w/ the collective pattern is the day job and speculating on reversals is the equivalent of going to the casino every couple of months.

From a fundamental standpoint what is worth watching is U.S. retail sales -- see below. The last 11-months have been slow, big drop off since the Xmas surge in late Nov. If activity picks up strongly now for Spring i'ts not a big deal, but if can't get above 392 or so toot sweet. then....who knows. Whatever happens I'm confident that buying short-term dips and selling short-term rallies inline w/ the collective pattern -- be that up or down -- will continue to work.

Off to the home improvement store to support consumption and retail sales for me