I just returned from the International Traders Expo in New York. It was a great conference and it gave me the opportunity to meet many of you. Thank you for making the effort to contact me. However, the downside was that I was so busy that I didn't write a single blog while I was in New York. Well, I'm back. Is the bull market back as well?

SPX closed today at $1840, up $11. It was another of the now familiar reversal days, where all of yesterday's decline was recovered in just one day. RUT also surged higher, gaining $13 to close at $1162. But the price action of the past four days is interesting; SPX seems to be having difficulty breaking through $1840. Just after the first of the year, SPX was trading in the range of $1830 to $1840, before breaking out to set a new high on January 15th, and then beginning the correction that ended over 6% down on February 5th. But it has been straight up since then. RUT has been trading in a similar pattern, attempting to break out above $1162. Trading volume was pretty flat today with 2.3 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading volume fell 6% on the NYSE and increased 2% on NASDAQ. So trading volume doesn't really help us validate today's upward move.

Markets opened weakly this morning based on the HSBC China purchasing managers' index falling to a seven month low at 48.3 for February. But then traders latched onto the Markit private manufacturing survey with a positive report of growth in U.S. manufacturing.  I am a little skeptical of a survey I have never heard of suddenly causing the market to pop upward. Other economic data released today was weak to poor. Initial unemployment claims came in at 336k, down just three thousand, while continuing unemployment claims rose by 37 thousand. Even worse, the Philadelphia Fed survey came in at a -6.3 for February, down from a positive reading of +9.4 in January.

I continue to be tempted to take the contrarian view on TSLA. Fortunately, I have resisted the urge. It just continues to run higher. Maybe TSLA is the market indicator - we are heading higher whether or not it makes sense.