Another day, another gain. That’s been the story for the S&P 500 lately, which has rallied higher in 12 of the last 15 trading sessions since January 20. As they say, “this bull has legs.” A rising market is surely enjoyable, but the higher it moves, the greater the chance that profit-taking will be just around the corner. That may happen when market strategists begin to talk about stocks becoming expensive when measured by traditional metrics. So here are four items I watch to see if the bull can keep running… 1. Money pouring… Read More
Another day, another gain. That’s been the story for the S&P 500 lately, which has rallied higher in 12 of the last 15 trading sessions since January 20. As they say, “this bull has legs.” A rising market is surely enjoyable, but the higher it moves, the greater the chance that profit-taking will be just around the corner. That may happen when market strategists begin to talk about stocks becoming expensive when measured by traditional metrics. So here are four items I watch to see if the bull can keep running… 1. Money pouring into domestic stock funds — POSITIVE The direction of the stock market is simply a function of supply and demand. When fund managers are given more money to work with, they put it into stocks, pushing share prices up. And they got plenty of firepower last quarter, bringing $45.5 billion, according to Lipper Fund Services. (90% of that went to actively-managed funds and the rest went to exchange-traded funds, or ETFs.) That was more than funds took in for the first three quarters of 2010. And the spigot keeps flowing. In the past two weeks (ended… Read More