Definitely a poor start to 2015. My Santa stocks are barely treading water – I suspect the Santa trade will fail this year.

This is probably due to the shaky condition of the US markets. VIX has been elevated for much of the last 4 weeks – which is a different pattern from the usual spike and decline. Also, a lot of optimism from the kids given the weak tape - AAII bulls up 5.1 last week to 46.1, bears down 6.2 to 21.5 (long term average is about 39% bulls, 30% bears).

I suspect we will need some kind of scary event to shake out the US market. Could happen soon – perhaps within a few trading days. Markets just “feel” nervous and are vulnerable to bad news – and there are a lot of areas to potentially draw from these days.

Most sectors are weak, but PM stocks are sneaking higher – perhaps a stealthy run is in the works.

I've been selling off my Santa stocks other than PMs. I'll continue until something changes.