February brought a strong rebound in stocks coupled with confirmation that volatility and uncertainty are prominent fixtures in the 2015 market. After a 3% decline in January, stocks rose almost 6% this month and now sit +2.5% YTD.

Despite the equity decline in January, NorthCoast maintained a “cautiously bullish” outlook for its tactical strategies – notably CAN SLIM and Tactical Growth. Similar to January-February 2014, the strategies stayed invested and took advantage of the early sell-off and rebound to move positive in 2015.

While technical indicators (market action) are a factor in determining market exposure levels, they are only one piece of NorthCoast’s comprehensive market outlook model. Other factors that play a role in future market movement are valuation, macroeconomic data, and analyst sentiment. As technical indicators weakened and valuation levels were still near highs at the end of January and into February, strong domestic and international macroeconomic data combined with analyst support provided the rationale to stay invested. As February, and equities, advanced, valuation levels increased while macroeconomic and sentiment outlook faded. Consequently, NorthCoast slightly reduced exposure to just over 80% (down from 91% at the beginning of February) and enters March in an “Opportunistic” environment.