Today marks the one year anniversary of the current bull market and it will be interesting to watch the action in the S & P 500 SPDR ETF (NYSE: SPY) and the rest of the market.



Chart Courtesy of StockCharts.com



This bull market, like most such phenomena was launched out of the jaws of despair. Fear was rampant. And the market climbed a constant wall of worry.

A year later, and some 60% higher as measured by some of the major indexes, it's important to take a look around and see if some of the same ingredients are still present.

First, we should look at fear. This is a bit hard to gauge, as some of the traditional fear gauges in the market, such as the put/call ratio and market sentiment surveys are not as accurate a set of predictors as they once were. So we are left with looking at headlines and culling through much of the talking head commentary that's available.

What we find is that there is no overwhelming optimism in this market. And that's a positive for investors, as when the world seems rosiest, is when bull markets tend to end. Remember the giddiness at the top in December 1999 when the Internet bubble burst. And who can forget the summer of 2007 when TV shows featuring housewives and ex-lawyers who had become house flippers were on every channel.

If you look at the headlines, many of them are still negative. For example, local papers are still running stories about houses being foreclosed, jobs being lost, and the lack of political will in Washington to get anything accomplished. Those stories are negative for Main Street. But on Wall Street, they are a sign that the bull market still has some legs. Remember markets climb a wall of worry. When no one is worried, it's time to sell.

The bottom line is that even if the market dips for the next few days, unless world peace breaks out, Congress starts doing the right thing, and Mr. Obama becomes a born again supply sider, the market will still have plenty to worry about. And as long as there is worry, the bull market has a chance to keep rising.

What would worry us? For one thing, if the recent rally in the small and midcap stocks starts to sour in a significant manner, that would be worrisome. Another thing that would concern us would be if currency traders turned against the dollar. Those are two very important benchmarks at the current time and should be kept in mind.

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