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Stocks gapped up on Monday morning, and in a volatile market, Monday gaps are very vulnerable, and that proved to be the case as the Dow, up 400-points at its high yesterday, traded in a 730 range and closed 650-points off those morning highs. Israel fending off Iran's attack eased weekend nerves helping the market rally early, and strong retail sales was a good sign for the economy, but it also pushed the dollar and yields up to new highs for the year.

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Whether it was a culmination of less favorable inflationary data, earnings and nervous guidance from JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, or just the dip buyers giving up for a day and allowing a pullback to ensue, stocks relented to the bears on Friday and we had the worse day for the S&P 500 since January. The losses were broad and sharp despite some relief in the bond yields.

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April has not been the month to hold stocks so far. Any TSP investors holding 100% stocks is down at least 2.4% for the month, and any of them holding 100% S-fund have seen their retirement account drop 4.7% in these first two weeks.

This week’s losses were deeper than the previous week’s. Yet only two TSP Talk AutoTracker members outperformed the G-fund last week. This week seven TSP Talk AutoTracker members pulled modest gains out of a sour week, and they all made ...

1The bull market is not going away easily, if at all, but the economic data and the Fed are continuously bombarding investors with new information that is whipsawing the indices. Most of the big losses from the reaction to Wednesday's hot CPI report, were erased after the dip buyers bought the cooler PPI data. The Dow was flat but the broader indices did quite well. Yields and the dollar were up again, but the dip buyers ignored it on Thursday.

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The stock and bond markets didn't get through the CPI unscathed, but it could have been worse as we did see the indices close off their lows. The charts are showing some cracks with those losses so this morning's PPI becomes that much more important. Perhaps it will reverse the decline but the hot CPI does poses a problem for the market. The big three indices lost near 1% on the day and small caps, which are more interest rate sensitive, took a near 2% haircut. Bonds fell sharply as yields moved ...