Ice Patch or Soft Patch?

(1) Chauncey Gardiner’s forecast. (2) Our forecast: Spring will start on Friday. (3) Citigroup Economic Surprise Index can be moody, and depressed during the winter. (4) Factory output slips on ice and oil. (5) Regional business surveys down, but not out. (6) Optimism should blossom in March and April. (7) Real retail sales not too bad really. (8) In the spring, there will be shopping. (9) More Texans collecting jobless insurance. (10) The downside of the dollar’s upside. (11) Fed depending on slippery data. (12) What’s the rush to normalize? (13) Focus on market-weight-rated S&P 500 housing-related industries.