The State of the Market -- Part I

This is the first of a four-part series on the market we find ourselves in as we wind down 2009. Be sure to check back all day for the remaining three installments.

September is now full-bore upon us and it is time to examine where the strength of this stock market lies and what it says about the direction of the economy in the coming months.

It is also time to reflect that many stocks are strong even as the chatter about many of the groups is negative. Mind you, I am not just talking about the endless negativity of The Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" columnists. (Oh my, with the exception of Peter Eavis -- the best in print -- they are seemingly constitutionally incapable of writing anything but saturnine "insights.") I am talking about the wholesale fretting that is a given among almost all who opine on this market.

The following exposition is neither simple nor short. It is the work of a week of cogitation in which I wearied of defending my view, when my view is largely the outgrowth of what the stocks are saying. The stocks are speaking loudly and in unison. This makes them difficult to refute and has kept me bullish for so long. I have called for only gentle pullbacks, although we haven't gotten even one so far after a huge run into September. Taken individually, each stock seems like an aberration. Taken together, I believe they are irrefutable.

What I did was go through hundreds and hundreds of charts to spur my thinking. This methodical approach confirms why I am so tugged toward the bullish camp despite:

1. The horror of past Septembers. It is a very cruel month, right up there with and often exceeding October.
2. A real vacuum of news telling us where we are.
3. No jobs being created, something my friend Dan DiMicco at Nucor (NUE - commentary - Trade Now) points out so eloquently after the release of the unemployment numbers.
4. The scary -- and I mean scary -- deficit numbers.

I am not blind to these worries even though my writing often might suggest otherwise. What is dazzling to me -- and I wish it were dazzling to others -- is the uniform strength in so many sectors that are supposed to be the biggest dampers, the largest causes of worry and the sources of endless shorting.

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