And you thought politics was crazy!  After record high temperatures in the Northeast on Wednesday, Thursday brought a freak snowstorm that dumped more than a foot of snow in the tri-state area, grounding pretty much everything to a halt.  After digging out the summer clothes Wednesday, shovels were the order of the day on Thursday.  Through the weather and everything else, though, the stock market continued to serve as a rock of stability, steadily rising in what was a relatively uneventful week in terms of the market.  After a small decline to start the week, the S&P 500 saw four straight days of gains for its longest winning streak of the year.

In our Bespoke Report a few weeks back, we highlighted the S&P 500’s stair-step pattern of the last year and how the recent pattern looked to be in the middle stages of completing the tread of a stair.  With each day that the sideways pattern went on, an increasing number of pundits were busy writing off the so-called Trump rally.  It only seems fitting that just when doubts over the sustainability of the rally reached their highest levels since the election, the S&P 500 broke out of its recent range to new all-time highs and forming a new riser in the stair step pattern.  Wherever the rally stops, nobody knows, but when it ends it will be at precisely the point when everyone who called an end to the rally decides that the rally “now has legs.”

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Have a great weekend!