Dynamics spurring last year's upside, mostly sputtered with sector-rotation since early February. Periodically breadth broadens out slightly and a move in unison occurs, absent sustainability. And, during intervening shakeouts, which are reflected in the Indexes, traders control their destiny at least temporarily in a sense, by buying specifically those big-cap stocks whose role, as it was last year, is to be heavy-lifters in the effort to contain a shakeout from being more.

(China, funding, obfuscation and long-haul concerns are a focus for markets too.)

Executive Summary:

• Market meanders slightly higher, lingering beneath S&P highs, mostly dull action during a semi-holiday week for many.

• A crucial study from Washington University suggests COVID survivors with high antibody levels (or anyone who did an antibody level test should they have been asymptomatic carriers or had mild cases barely notice).. these individuals may not need the vaccine (something I speculated about).

• Should this be borne-out before we've had multiple rounds of universally promoted vaccinations, it will reduce the population requiring vaccination, and is more important to research now that there's some understanding of not only high antibody levels, but the risks is getting them 'too' high.

• The actual numbers of people that harbor COVID antibodies exceed total COVID cases that were or are known, and that could mean being closer to herd immunity than generally recognized, but again that's pedestrian to a degree, because even the Stanford Study some report on, misses the key point about how people could 'think' they weren't exposed, then they get a severe vaccine reaction, because they already had very high antibodies, I realize this is subjective as most believe post-COVID vaccine is helpful.

• Recognize that some viruses require annual flu shots (for instance), while others do not, Spanish Flu, Smallpox, Polio and others (like the Swine flu) either spread so fast to create herd immunity before more got sick, wiped out a significant portion of populations, a vaccine arrived (crisis over), the public simply retained antibodies for years or even decades (how effective those aging antibodies varies, and it's too soon to know as far as COVID).

• Listening to Dr. Fauci's rationale for Wuhan Lab testing, it sounds like the early stories of NIH funding research had merit, and for China what might have been an accidental release of the horrible scourge went from initial denials and cover-up's to what amounts to criminal (even warlike) action.

• It's now very clear that Dr. Fauci 'omitted' (being kind) reporting pre-COVID Wuhan funding (with a pathetic excuse of not in Fairfax County Virginia), I think he's gone way beyond his job description, but I always was irritated by his opposition to funding 'therapeutic HIV treatments', always focusing on vaccines (we still doesn't have it), delaying arrival of pills to fight HIV.

• So it makes sense President Biden today ordered Intelligence Agencies to delved into the origins of the virus, after denying suspending what was being done along those lines at the State Dept., I think that means we're going to find out it was from the lab in Wuhan, so the White House wants to get out in front of that, as appearing to promote the old story could soon bite.

• Interestingly January's statement came from 'The Bureau of Arms Control' at State, as underplayed in almost all media), our view has leaned since January (well before Washington) suspecting it indeed was a bioweapon released from the Wuhan Lab, unintentional accident or not.

• Finally, the statement 2 weeks ago by a Beijing researcher saying China beat the US in the bio-war of 2020 is not conducive to cordiality, Beijing at this point has some nerve to criticize the U.S. for investigating the origins, and no, despite my desire to retaliate against the CCP (not the PRC itself) for attacking 'me' with the CCP virus, I didn't nudge the new investigation (please understand my slightly wry humor at times, not meant literally).

• This evening the FDA granted EUA to both Glaxo Smith-Kline (GSK) and Vir Biotechnology (VIR), for their monoclonal antibody drugs, hopefully they work, also it vindicates a bit more the efforts by Sorrento on this front, although I'm very frustrated about the slow speed or roadblocks delaying progress sooner, by the way Dr. Fauci resisted MAB's similarly to little faith in HIV cocktails years ago.

• Today we heard Senate Bank Com. heavy 'grilling', it was a bit ludicrous, you don't have the egregious behavior, you do have modernized systems for the most part, plus some of the no-fee so-called pro-depositor smaller banks or platforms to link payment methods, often make their money with no visible fees, but by harvesting, and reselling data (worse than others).

• I mostly tuned-out Senators berating of some of the banks, especially as they avoided issues that do matter, like leveraging provided to institutions or hedge funds, that delivered the S&P (SPX) performance we saw last year.

• Part of this may continue in this year's 2nd half, but generally even if the regulators turn a blind eye, the top bankers are keenly aware of what was done at the behest of hedgers, and they want to avoid 'blow-up's' whether or not regulations mandate common sense, or not (variable greed?).

• Banks & Oils were foreseen key for S&P this year, and with liquidity in an excess mode for now, Banks are ok, but the primary moves are done.

• All else being equal, these stocks and momentum giants led the upside of course, and there will be bouts of moves as the shuffles continue,

Hesitancy about risk-taking dominates what is a semi-holiday week. Too many are trying to reassess where things stand, or becoming cynical critics of those of us who have called this market what it is: a multi-month rotating correction.

Looking for a catalyst such as an exogenous event that can break markets for sure makes sense, but acting upon what 'might' at some future time, become a real factor, doesn't generally work, as this whole year generally displayed.

Epic fiscal and monetary stimulus have supported this market since we'd identified the low of March 23rd of last year. This whole year is a different phase and I don't mean just the 'inflation' or 'reasonable tapering' from the Fed. This year has been, as forecast, a shift to Oils and Banks, to Industrials, to some of the emerging EV considerations (not easy to play, we were simply bearish on Tesla (TSLA) for a correction, and liked Ford (F) at lower levels as an emerging play in the sector, and it continues doing very well).