The unwavering uptrend in stocks in the last few years may be seeing disruption with the return of volatility in 2018. Institutional and retail investors are looking for various gauges to measure the effect of volatility and how that’s trending in the coming quarters. Most analysts think there may be more upside and opportunities to come this year even with (or perhaps because of) the emergence of geopolitical issues.

We are coming to the next phase of the divergence. I woke up this morning, turned on the box and first commentator I saw said we’ve started the next leg up in the bull market. Some of these people take it for granted the market is going up again. Has anyone noticed the Dow and SPX peaked in January?

The historic OPEC NON-OPEC production agreement became known as OPEC plus one. Russia became that plus one as they joined OPEC and conspired with them to reduce production and ultimately raise production and reduce supply. As OPEC meets today it is OPEC minus one. Iran seems to be the lone holdout from a production deal that’s on paper.

It was all about the FOMC Rate Decision release on Wednesday, and stocks' initial reaction to that news was slightly negative. The broad stock market extended its short-term consolidation along the resistance level. Will the uptrend continue or is this some topping pattern ahead of downward reversal? There are still two possible medium-term scenarios.

E.S.C. Coppock introduced the indicator in Barron’s in October 1965. The goal of this indicator is to identify long-term buying opportunities in the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Index. The signal is very simple. Coppock used monthly data to identify buying opportunities when the indicator moved from negative territory to positive territory.

Are you sad to see April go? I’m not because April showers usually lead to May flowers. Am I in the Twilight Zone or did I actually see the two leaders of the Koreas hug this week? That’s incredible. If you think about it, how many times have I come here in the past year warning about some geopolitical problem on the peninsula that could blow up the stock market?

What a very strange week. Last Wednesday the Transports led to the upside while the Dow lagged. You’ll recall the Dow lagged because IBM got clobbered on their earnings report. Also, the BKX along with Goldman Sachs flattened out. Goldman is still moving to the downside. Why is this important? IBM is the 9th weighted stock in the Dow while Goldman Sachs is number two.

Investors are likely to have breathed a sigh of relief after the U.S. stock markets’ worst start to the second quarter since the 1929 Great Depression failed to encourage a widespread selloff across the global markets, as traders returned to their desks after the annual Easter holidays.