▪ Whatever ends up transpiring on the equities rally, it is obvious the markets are back into one of those phases where even weakish economic news will not help the fixed income unless and until the equities capitulate once again. Which makes tomorrow's US Advance Retail Sales (FEB) another of those critical end of week influences once again. While there have been some bright spots this week, there is weakness in key elements… Which is what makes tomorrow's US Retail Sales so very important to equity markets that are back up around previous highs. As the estimate for the report is already anticipating some weakening from the previous month's 0.5% gain to just 0.2% on the headline number, any miss to the downside might put a cap on the equities rally.

▪ The critical decision will be in the March S&P 500 future back up into its previous highs around 1,147. The reason is that it is the more balanced trend between the once again euphoric NASDAQ 100 and DJIA that has become a real laggard, just like late last year.

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▪ As we reviewed key technical decisions facing equities and long-dated fixed income yesterday, we refer you back to our TrendView BRIEF UPDATE (http://bit.ly/dAg1UC) for the full analysis. And in the wake of the March S&P 500 future push to above its previous 1,147 rally high the burden of proof is obviously the bears into today's US Retail Sales. That is especially so in light of the overnight electronic trade that has also seen the June S&P 500 future push above that previous lead contract high from back in January. While we previously noted that the estimate for the report was already anticipating some weakening from the previous month's 0.5% gain to just 0.2% on the headline number, we now see that the full range of estimates allows for anything down to -0.2%. As such, it likely takes something worse than that to weigh on the buoyant equities in light of their ability to exhibit so much resilient technical strength.

▪ As far as the other asset classes are concerned, in spite of the energy markets remaining very strong, April Crude Oil has stalled at the low end of a broad resistance range at 82.20-83.50; if it cannot push through there soon, it may still be topping out.

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▪ On one hand, a new high by eight bucks in the September S&P 500 future is nothing to sneeze at. On the other hand, in the scope of the major rally since the March 2009 low or even the early February selloff, it's fairly minor. In fact, even a push to the lead contract Objective in the 1,166 area would need to be considered a fairly contained extension. What's the point of all that? Quite simply that (as we suspected might be the case) the other asset classes are not experiencing the sort of direct or counterpoint reactions which might have been anticipated under normal circumstances; which is to say the expectation of extensive, sustained economic strength as the rationale behind the equities rally.

▪ And in spite of the fact it has been quite a bit more grudging than might have been expected, that will likely continue to provide the intermarket asset class influences over the short- to intermediate-term; including some pressure on the govvies and US dollar, while providing support to the April Crude Oil that stalled as expected into its broad 82.20-83.50 resistance range and April Gold continuing to languish near 1,100-1,090 area.

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We're Baaaack! And this will be where we post our extended comments. As always, we will provide engaging perspectives from others along with our pointed, humorous and/or sardonic commentary.

After a lengthy hiatus it dawned on us the best use for our weblog was to post those interesting additional comments that we had previous been adding to our various TrendView Update reports. While relevant perspectives from third-party sources enriched our analyses, there were some dilemmas with including them in our reports. Two of the most prominent were the digression from the main market perspective, and the sheer extended length that dictated when added to the primary analysis.

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Just to begin the blogging adjunct to our primary analysis with a bang, how about the degree to which all of the European Monetary Union rescue plans seem to be a lot of hot air? We'll get back to how that relates to our recent main analytic views below. But for now, the degree to which those rescue plans are inconsistent within themselves and significantly self-defeating is striking.

We have expressed our own incremental shift in views from the impressive 'early agreement' on a 'deal' two weeks ago, into cynical realism last week when EMU officials said they couldn't possibly tackle the expanded funding and functions for EFSF until this summer. But the crux of the matter is that even what has been ostensibly agreed is significantly less than credible.

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