The Strength of the Market is: Strong

After last week's poor market performance, today started with a rebound. As we look forward to the rest of the week, all eyes will be on tomorrow's presidential inauguration, which brings us a new administration focused on more stimulus and better suppressing the pandemic. The Treasury Secretary nominee, Janet Yellen, will be ready to take action on economic relief and the nominated Director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, has the goal of providing 100 million vaccines in her first 100 days on the job. These top priorities - stimulus & health - should give the economy a boost and could, possibly, make stocks go even higher.

Unfortunately, economic reports from last week were not good:

•Small Business Optimism - worse than expectation

•Jobless Claims - worse than expectation

•Manufacturing (New York) - worse than expectation

•Consumer Sentiment - worse than expectation

•Retail Sales - worse than expectation

In a holiday-shortened week ahead, investors will look for guidance from reports like Housing, Jobless Claims and Manufacturing.