Climbing a Wall of Worry

The market is scaling a wall of worry here in face of higher oil and talk of a slowing economy. The S&P broke out to close at its highest weekly high in 4 years and as we start out triple witching week the NASDAQ is threatening a breakout as well. The secret here is to not over think this situation too much. The trend is up, and while it may be a cheesy platitude, the trend is indeed our friend. Last month was a miserable month where prices chopped around creating very few trade opportunities. In hindsight we can see now how that action, which was poor for trading, was creating a base of support from which stocks could launch an attack on 4-year breakout levels. We are not there yet, but last week ended on a positive note. Let’s see if this week follows through.