Daily State Of The Markets: Let's Be Honest Here ...

By David Moenning: Publishing Note: I am traveling abroad (my wife and I are visiting Ireland) during the next 2.5 weeks. Thus the "Daily State" report will be published as time permits.

By David Moenning: Good Morning. I will need to apologize upfront for this morning's missive, because I feel a rant coming on and try as I might, I don't think I'm going to be able to avoid it. To be honest, I had every intention of penning (er, typing) a well-documented piece on the state of the market. In short, since yesterday's joyride to the upside came out of the blue and there wasn't any obvious catalyst associated with the buying binge, I figured some "esplainin" might be in order.

By David Moenning: Good morning. To be honest, making sense of the stock market action (which is the primary objective of my oftentimes meandering morning market missive) can be challenging at times. For example, one minute the focus is on the economy and the next it's on the Fed. On the subject of Bernanke's Bunch, one day the worry is that the Fed is going to pull the punch bowl from the QE party and the next, well, the data indicates that QEinfinity is still the name of the game.

By David Moenning: Good morning. As long-time readers know, I am a card-carrying member of the-glass-is-half-full club when it comes to the big-picture outlook for both the U.S. economy and stock market. This is due to the fact that in 1995 I had a revelation that changed the way I looked at things from that point on. And to be honest, I am very thankful that I learned what turned out to be a fairly painful, yet important, lesson at the time.

By David Moenning: Good morning. To be honest, I am not a terribly political person and I try my best to keep my political views out of my writing. I generally vote for the presidential candidate that I believe is best for the country. As such, I will admit to having voted for both teams over the years. However, since there about a zillion places to get biased political commentary, I figure the world doesn't need one more.

By David Moenning: Good morning. Sell in May and go away. It appears that is just about everything an investor needs to know these days. You see, selling in May certainly worked well in 2006, it eventually saved you some pain in 2007, was prophetic in 2008, modestly profitable in 2009, very helpful in 2010, a life saver in 2011, and a darned good idea this year as the S&P 500 fell -6.27% last month.

By David Moenning: Publishing Note: I am Traveling Monday-Thursday this week. Daily State of the Markets reports will be published as my schedule permits.Good morning.

By David Moenning: Good morning. The primary purpose of our Daily State of the Markets report is to identify the drivers of the market action on a daily basis. As I've said a time or 20, the thinking is that if we can stay in tune with what the market is doing on a daily basis, we aren't likely to be surprised by the action on a weekly, monthly, or even annual basis. But as anyone who has ever clicked the buy button can attest, this task isn't always easy.