NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. stocks rose Monday to trade near multi-year highs in the first session of the new quarter as a reading on domestic manufacturing bolstered investor sentiment.Stocks opened nearly flat Monday, but drifted higher following the release of March manufacturing data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded up 71 points, or 0.5%, to 13283 in early afternoon trading, on track for its highest close since December 2007. All but two of the 30 blue chips were higher.This tells me that if the Fed can keep the dollar in a favorable trading range, we can have better time in the USA. The globe has changed since the 1970s; there are huge buying markets out there. Cutting off access to those markets through a "strong dollar" philosophy no longer makes sense. When globe was not much of a market anyway perhaps it made sense to buy cheap through a strong dollar. Now there are huge opportunities to sell to the growing global economy.
March average daily withholding tax receipts were about 7% over last year's figures. Another good jobs report is in store on Friday.
A bit more color on those withholding receipts numbers.In March, $166,353 billion in withholding tax receipts were collected.In March of last year, $162,081 billion were collected.That's a y-o-y increase of 2.64%. There's a particular calendar quirk going on to make the daily average % increase larger than the total for the month. Split the difference between the two and it should give you a general idea
I just realized one other thing. There were only 22 weekdays in March this year compared to 23 last year (which would also explain why the per-day average was so much greater than the monthly total). If we've still got a 2.64% y-o-y growth in withholding taxes with one fewer weekday (and one day can actually make a big difference), then that really points to pretty good growth in tax receipts.Now I'm *really* interested in tomorrow's auto sales.
UPDATE: 3/28/2012 dataSCHAEFFER'S INVESTORS INTELLIGENCEPERCENT BULLISH - 50.5% up from 43.6% two weeks ago. PERCENT BEARISH - 22.6% down from 26.6% two weeks ago.The percent bullish first rose to 50.5% on 12/28/2011 and has been no higher than 54.8% since then. The previous significant high was 58% in January 2011.LIPPER U.S. FUND FLOWS (includes ETF funds)February 2012EQUITY FUNDS - inflows of $11 BillionTAXABLE BOND FUNDS - inflows of $36.4 BillionMarch 2012 (my estimate)EQUITY FUNDS - inflows of $3.48 BillionTAXABLE BOND FUNDS - inflows of $19 BillionNo over exuberance here.
Scott, just curious what sets the upper and lower bounds for the two trend lines?
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