By Scott Martindale
President, Sabrient Systems LLC

The year has begun with a continuation of the bullish optimism in equities. The new mood rewarding economically-sensitive market segments began with the big post-election rally – which was partly due to simply removing the election uncertainty and partly due to the “Trump Bump” and an expectation of a more business-friendly environment. Investors are playing a bit of wait-and-see regarding President Trump’s initial executive orders. Last week ended with a strong employment report and an executive order seeking to take the shackles off the banking industry (including dismantling of the Dodd-Frank Act and delay/review of the DOL Fiduciary Rule), which sent the Financial sector surging and led the Dow to close back above 20,000 and the NASDAQ Composite to new record highs, while the S&P500 struggles to breakout above the 2,300 level.

No doubt, the new Administration is shaking things up, as promised…and the left is pushing back hard, as promised. Nevertheless, I believe economic fundamentals are positive with a favorable environment for equities globally – especially fundamentals-based portfolios like Sabrient’s. I also like the prospects for small caps, European, and Japan.

In this periodic update, I give my view of the current market environment, offer a technical analysis of the S&P 500 chart, review Sabrient’s weekly fundamentals-based SectorCast rankings of the ten U.S. business sectors, and then offer up some actionable ETF trading ideas. Overall, our sector rankings still look bullish, and the sector rotation model continues to suggest a bullish stance. Read on....