The market is back to the races in Q2 today with a whole lot of green on the board. Stocks, oil, gold, and commodities all finished higher today.

The reason: the news folks were touting the manufacturing numbers from February.

Yes, the ISM index of national factory activity rose to 53.4 in February, topping economist’s expectations of 53.0. Although it was only a .4 bonus, it was a full point above last month’s number.

The economic data released Monday was far from uniformly positive. Construction Spending data was not the +0.7% gain that was expected but a -1.1% decline. It was also far worse than last month’s release of -0.1%. It doesn’t seem to matter. Any and all economic data is viewed through a myopic lens that screens out any negative information and over-emphasizes the positive.

As we saw today, the market went straight up despite the aforementioned construction spending that suffered its biggest drop in seven months. In addition, we learned the euro zone's manufacturing sector contracted for an eighth straight month in March, with the downturn spreading to the core economies of Germany and France.

But none of this seemingly matters. With the central planners in charge, we’ve become conditioned to the good-news-only part of the proposition.

When you continue to operate in economic fantasy land with a Federal Reserve determined to keep the dollars coming, and interests rates low, there’s no reason to consider the bad news.

Trade well and follow the trend, not the so-called “experts.”

Best Trade to You,
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Larry Levin
President & Founder - TradingAdvantage