There is nothing like a blast off at the beginning of the year that follows an end of the year that found no buyers due to political drama in Washington. Talk about performance anxiety. It's is palpable with anxious buyers everywhere. This has led to a huge spike in new highs for the year which usually is a sign of exhaustion near term. Last week gave a setup for a retrace on Thursday which the market promptly ignored on Friday for the most part. That is evidence of the anxiety that is out there on the part of performance managers. They have to get involved and it doesn't matter how. Just get me some stock on the books is the way it works.

Although this will pass, sometimes it is sticky enough that the consolidation/retrace becomes more consolidation than retrace. We will have to see if this episode turns out that way or not. After a 4% move in 4 days though, you have to believe we are going to have to settle down for a bit so don't get to anxious yourself and start buying stocks that have taken off at even higher levels. That's usually a recipe for under performing, not outperforming.

Gold was up over $10 this morning but has reversed lower. Commodities in general seem to be in a lot of trouble from my perch. They are the forgotten child right now it seems with all the money shifting to financials, industrials, transports --- pretty much everything else. Even the shippers which have been down and out for ages popped as if there was no tomorrow on Friday. A sign of the times when all is good once more and nothing can seemingly stop the freight train higher. We know how those trains hit brick walls eventually but this train and its track are fresh so we can worry about that a bit later.