Looking a lot like the summer of 2011

Sometimes, for lack of a better way to forecast what could happen, we look at historical similarities and we make an assumption that human behaviour can repeat. After all, those that cannot remember history are condemned to repeat – a Spanish philosopher one said.

Looking back at 2011, we have a similar set of market catalysts and, so far, the market seems to be playing out in a very similar fashion taking the March lows (March 6^th, 2012 and March 16^th, 2011) as the base low.

In my educational segment, I look at the overlay of 2012 and 2011 in percentage terms. With the ECB putting together a bandage for Spanish banks and polls tilting towards Greece staying in the European Monetary Union (EMU), there is a good chance the markets will continue to bounce back for a few more weeks, but unless we can make new highs, odds of another disappointing summer looms large.

This time around, we are not likely to get a downgrade to the U.S. debt as S&P just updated their view and indicated a downgrade would come in the second half of 2013 -- if and when it does. So we continue to look towards Europe and earnings as the drivers for the markets in the next few months.

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