January Barometer Predicts Smooth Sailing for 2012 - Really?

By Simon Maierhofer | ETFguide

RELATED QUOTES

Symbol	Price	Change
^GSPC	1,349.95996	+2.91
^IXIC	2,915.86	+0.00
^DJI	12,883.95	+5.75
EFA	54.16	+0.00
EEM	43.91	+0.00

January has been a month of superlatives - positive and negative.

Here are the positive:

The S&P 500 was up 4.36% in January 2012, the biggest January gain since 1997.

For the entire month of January, the S&P 500 never suffered any more than a 0.6% drop. This is the first time ever.

Unemployment, at least the official number, dropped to 8.3%.

Here are the negative:

Trading volume has been abysmal. You may remember me harping about low volume last year at this time. Well, the average number of daily NYSE volume last year was 891 million shares. This year it was 661 million shares... read more.