In a year in which stock prices mostly have been driven by news rather than fundamentals, three things stood out last week. First, terrorism has taken on an unsettling new face -- the stay-at-home mom down the street or your long-time co-worker at the plant -- as the dark side of the exponential growth in social media rears its ugly head (with something much more sinister than porn sites or online bullying). Second, with the strong jobs report on Friday, the Federal Reserve seems to have all their ducks in a row to justify the first fed funds rate hike in nine years.

Two weeks ago, bulls seemed ready to push stocks higher as long-standing support reliably kicked in. But with just one full week to go before the Independence Day holiday week arrives, we will see if bulls can muster some reinforcements and make another run at the May highs. Small caps and NASDAQ are already there, but it is questionable whether those segments can drag along the broader market. To be sure, there is plenty of potential fuel floating around in the form of a friendly Fed and abundant global liquidity seeking the safety and strength of US stocks and bonds.

As Q1 of 2014 comes to an end, we can see that January was extremely weak, February gained it all back, and March treaded water. At this point, as we head into what has been the strongest month of the year over the past 20 years, signals are mixed, with a steadily recovering economy and bullish fundamental indicators mixed with neutral technical and some bearish sentiment indicators.

As I and most other observers expected, stocks took the go-signal from Congress and burst through all prior resistance levels with barely any hesitation. And why not?

Surprise!  The market roared ahead this morning with all three major domestic indices up at least 1.5%. The move was triggered by a weekend with little negative economic news domestically and globally.  Then this morning, an impressive increase in Consumer Confidence to 76.2, which was not only well above last month’s 68.1 and the projected 72.5 but also a 5-year high, provided investors something to cheer about.

It was a wild ride last week and perhaps the worst week the markets have seen since we began publishing this newsletter in 2004.  But today the bulls stampeded and the shorts ran for cover as the S&P 500 gained +4.4% for the day!