robots chocolate What do bulls and robots have in common? They get all giddy after gorging on chocolate Easter eggs and then go on a buying spree. Yup! Couple that chocolate "high" with the relief that North Korea didn't play with their nuclear toys, or little rockets, and Monday starts with a strong rally across the board. The 3 major averages (DOW, S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite) all moved up sharply bouncing back from recent declines and all settling with just under 1% gains. Back to "we can go up forever" mentality and the robots (AI) won't let markets go down. Yeah, OK,

double click that. How about the fintech sector? That has been a very weak group but the

KFTX

fintech index tacked on

13.43

points (

+1.21%

) today and closed at 1120.25. Nice move and actually outperformed its bigger brother/sister averages. Oh yeah, and the breadth today really rocked with 46 stocks up and only 2 down with 2 unchanged. Whatever it was (shorts, robots, etc) it was impressive. Below are the issues in the KFTX that mover 2 points and/or 3% today.

ADS

+3.60 (238.51)

DNB

+2.38 (107.39)

EFX

+2.17 (137.03)

FDS

+3.17 (161.09)

FICO

+2.05 (128.08)

MKTX

+4.63 (182.70)

SPGI

+2.48 (130.76)

TREE

+3.05 (119.85)

So here we are in the middle of earnings season but the big things to watch/listen for is forward guidance. Hard to get a good handle on that. Growth slowing, valuations high and hopes are really

high

. Of course growth could explode and markets are 'reasonable' after all,

BUT

I just have to stay in the skeptical camp. "Sell in May and go away" makes sense (at least to me) and the calendar just got one day closer to May. Have a good evening.