The bulls were willing to weather the storm a little more than the bears, hibernating from the cold. Stocks were off to a positive start as weekly jobless claims fell below 450,000 to 440,000. In general, economists feel that consistent claims below 450,000 will lead to job growth in the monthly data. February is off to a good start. Global markets were also encouraged to see a pledge by EU leaders to put something in writing near-term. This isn’t going to solve the crisis, by any means but it could avert a string of messy debt defaults. The markets clearly took it as a positive. The Dollar was firm, but we saw strength in Basic Material and Energy groups, aiding in the broadbased rally. The Semis jumped to the top spot. It is important to see Technology lead this bounce. We still have not moved up to the key technical resistance levels on the various indices, S & P 1104, Dow 10,270, and NASDAQ 2200, but all of the averages closed near their highs of the day and positioned themselves for challenging these levels on good economic data. The big number is the January Retail Sales report, which is expected to show a gain of 0.3% after falling 0.3% in December. I am a bit worried that the expectations for ex-auto, ex-gasoline at up 0.5% might be too high. Remember, these are sales, not profits. Since retailers were very tight on their inventories, they didn’t have much to liquidate after the holidays. We’re off to a tough start as investors focus on slower growth in China due to higher reserve requirements at their banks.