Friday’s session, on the face of it was troubling after fears over global issues and a Bloomberg outage.  However, today’s rebound was a good sign as the selling did not follow-through.  We continue to see a lack of follow-through on either side of the market here.  Today is a good sign, but at some point when and whatever direction this market follows-through on should provide a decent move.  Our current positioning suggests this should come to the upside.  Our exits will provide us our cushion if the market decides to push the other direction.  We continue to wait for this market to prove its worth and while today was a step in the right direction we still need to see confirmation of a new rally.

AAPL is aiding the market’s rebound today as the stock reclaims its 50 day moving average.  Volume was unable to reach its 50 day volume average and it would have been a nice sign to see volume jump on a move like today.  Regardless of volume today’s session was a nice boost for the stock as well as the NASDAQ, S&P 500, and Dow Jones Industrial Average.  Also assisting was another technology titan MSFT.  After reporting disappointing earnings in January the stock is looking to reclaim what it lost the few days after its last earnings report.  Volume on the day for MSFT jumped in a good sign of support for the stock.  Neither stock will likely produce gains as we see with VIPS, but both are important as they do account for the majority of our index moves.

Aside from information technology leading the S&P 500 the utilities sector was a close second.  97% of utilities in the S&P 500 were positive on the session and as a group up 1.5% on the session.  Utilities are likely trading in tandem with yields.  As treasury yields decline the hunt for yield will likely lead to utilities and/or high yield markets.  HYG and JNK will likely continue their current trend along with the utility sector if treasury yields continue to fall.  Many will like the safety of a dividend yield while ZIRP erodes the earning power of savers.

Today was a good start to the week after a terrible ending to last week.  Earnings season continues and we do suggest you know when your stocks are set to report.  Cut those loses short and ride your winners.