While the major US equity averages are still minus on the year, they’re notably less so versus just a couple weeks ago. And while, perhaps at the margin, concerns around Russia/Ukraine influenced January’s early trading, suffice to say that the prospects for the Fed pulling what for quite some time seemed like a perpetually-full punchbowl largely explains the angst.

As for the moment, a stellar earnings reporting season (76% of S&P 500 members have bested estimates, with a third left to report) along with some calming words from European central bankers — and, I’d say, attempts to still the market waters a bit via the words of US monetary policymakers as well — has traders staying with the buy-the-dip playbook. Or, let’s say, willing to squeeze every ounce of juice out of a market that’s facing a number of real-world headwinds without that obviosity of the Fed coming to its immediate (other than perhaps a bit of jawboning) rescue. The latter being a major headwind in and of itself.

As for the technicals, with regard to the SP500, they’re definitely improving.

Zeroing in on the one-year daily chart, recapturing the 200-day moving average (blue line) is no small deal:

“Working with heavy industry gave me a profound appreciation of the central dynamic of capitalism. “Creative destruction” is an idea that was articulated by the Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Like many powerful ideas, his is simple:

A market economy will incessantly revitalize itself from within by scrapping old and failing businesses and then reallocating resources to newer, more productive ones.

I read Schumpeter in my twenties and always thought he was right, and I’ve watched the process at work through my entire career.”

–Greenspan, Alan. The Age of Turbulence

And I’ve definitely benefited (learned) from reading Chairman Greenspan’s post-fed books, but… well… oh my!!