March Madness?

Check out the accompanying pdf and chart collection. Executive Summary: The stock market beat a hasty retreat in February, spooked by reports of January’s economic strength and the Fed’s dreaded possible reaction. So today we look at what March’s releases of economic data for February might bring. They could be bad news for the markets, but we actually expect the best—viewing January’s strength as anomalous and expecting February’s data to confirm our soft-landing outlook. Accordingly, we still think a new bull market was born last October; it’s just not bursting out of the gate as most bulls do. The market may remain volatile pending more clarity on what the Fed will do. … Also: Dr. Ed’s bearish review of “Cocaine Bear” (-).