Last week I wrote about the market’s impressive run off the March 2009 V-bottom. But since then, the bottom has fallen out, led by the Technology sector. Those of you who read this column regularly know that I have been opining that the rally has been pretty much manufactured by the Fed and their quantitative easing initiatives, but more recently the signs of economic recovery have been taking shape without much inflation.

Markets Drop as Japan's Problems Grow

by David Brown, Chief Market Strategist, Sabrient Systems

Editor’s note: The Investor's (H)Edge Portfolio, managed by David Brown, is a long/short, absolute-return portfolio of 13 Longs and 13 Shorts.  Each week David reviews one long position and one short position and either renews or replaces the stocks, based primarily on the stocks' scores in the Sabrient Outlook Rankings.

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the V-bottom that launched an impressive bull market. Since then, the SPY large cap is up about 95%, while MDY mid cap and IWM small cap are up about 135%. Leading sectors include Basic Materials, Industrials, and Financials, which are each up at least 150%. Pretty impressive.

Editor's note: Publication of What the Market Wants was delayed until today because of some ambiguous results from our sector stats.  David Brown explains this in the sidebar at the end of the newsletter.

Editor's Note: This week's issue of "What the Market Wants" will be published on Tuesday, March 8.

This month marks the first time since July 1 that the first trading day of the month wasn’t an up day. That’s 8 months in a row of money pouring in on the first trading day. Furthermore, recall that July 1 marked a low for the SPY at 101.13 that ended a 2-month correction to the 13-month rally off the March 2009 V-bottom, and launched a new 8-month rally. Is the fun over now?

Economy Struggles To Recover As Middle East Rages

by David Brown, Chief Market Strategist, Sabrient Systems

It’s a nice change of pace to talk about something other than the stock market’s persistent uptrend getting more and more overbought. This week has brought some excitement indeed. As I said the last two weeks, it will pay to be cautious with long positions because such a market can reverse and fall quite quickly.

Mid-East Turmoil Trumps Improving Economy

by David Brown, Chief Market Strategist, Sabrient Systems