I'm baaaacckkkk!!!  It's been a long 2-1/2 weeks out of the picture as I've been dealing with recovering from a TIA episode (two days in the hospital early February) followed by a stomach flu, followed by computer issues which I just this evening finally resolved after two weeks of struggle.  So what all has happened in the world of finance during this hiatus?  Pretty much just more of the same.  The market continues to be violently up and down on practically a daily basis, when oil has a good day the market has a good day, when oil sinks so goes the rest of Wall Street.  Being off all this time I began to wonder if maybe it would be more constructive to do a weekly posting instead of daily.  Yet I feel that going weekly will probably make me and everyone else lazy and then we may stop keeping up with things altogether.  So I'll continue with the discipline of the daily updates.  I for one get a lot out of doing this and I hope that sentiment is shared.  The fact that my metrics tell me that I get anywhere from 15 to 60 views per day tells me that there are indeed some of you who are getting value from this too.

I have now registered for the CFP program which begins April 26th and will be followed by a two-month part-time internship which will likely be followed by a full-time job.  The idea is that, having the introductory class behind me, I'll then work for six months to find out if this is right for me, then plunge into the year-long program next February which will culminate with me taking (and hopefully passing) the national boards in March 2018 and thus I will be completing the academic requirements just a few months before completing the two year work requirement.  The exam is a rigorous one which has only a 40% pass rate.  Most candidates take it four times before they pass.  OU boasts a 95% pass rate on the first attempt.  For that reason alone, this program should be very worthwhile.  I am quite excited about getting started.  Meanwhile, I have a book to finish writing and now have until April 26th to do that.  And I haven't given up on FastTrack, continuing to study it, sometime I'll show up at the Troy meeting and give everyone an update.

Today was yet another day that oil had a good day and sent the Dow soaring another 228 points.  It was up and down the like crazy the last two weeks as one day Russia and the Saudis would say "yes we're going to trim production" and the next day they'd say "no, we don't think so after all."  But one thing that has become evident this past week and, much to the astonishment of our international neighbors, is that the U.S. investor seems to be sloughing off all this craziness and remaining firmly of the sentiment that the economic forecast remains a positive one.  Daily volume has been considerably higher than usual the past few weeks as everyone tries to guess which way the rollercoaster is going to go on any given day.  Today, it was back to more normal levels with 7.1 billion shares traded.

Markets | Mon Feb 22, 2016 4:39pm EST

Wall St lifted by muscular oil rally but some still skittish

BY NOEL RANDEWICH

DJ:          16,620.66  +228.67           NAS:      4,570.61  +66.18                S&P:      1,945.50  +27.72                2/22

REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMID

Wall Street surged on Monday, helped by a robust rally in oil prices that lifted recently crushed energy stocks, including Chevron and Schlumberger.  As it has for months, Wall Street followed the lead of global oil prices in a trend that has left the S&P 500 down 5 percent so far in 2016, following a partial recovery last week.

Monday's stock gains were as broad as they were strong, with all 10 major S&P sectors finishing higher, but investors shell-shocked by this year's market turbulence remained wary.

"You still have concerns about China and where growth goes there, and that's why you're still going to have this volatility," said Kurt Brunner, portfolio manager at Swarthmore Group in Philadelphia. "We're still going to have considerations about heavily indebted energy companies going into default."

U.S. crude prices settled up more than 6 percent but still remained around decade lows, while prices of industrial metals such as copper and zinc rose as investors worried about potential shortages.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI jumped 1.39 percent to end at 16,620.66 points. The S&P 500 .SPX gained 1.45 percent to 1,945.5 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 1.47 percent to 4,570.61. 

The S&P energy sector .SPNY rose 2.23 percent, boosted by Chevron's (CVX.N) 2.68 percent increase. Shares of oilfield services provider Schlumberger closed up 2.06 percent.

The materials sector .SPLRCM rose 1.87 percent. Alcoa (AA.N) and Freeport-McMoRan (FCX.N) were the biggest influences, both surging over 13 percent.

Recent turmoil in global markets and macroeconomic uncertainty has left investors split over whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year.

Among S&P 500 companies, there have been 75 negative EPS pre-announcements for the first quarter, compared to 16 positive pre-announcements, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

After the bell, Fitbit (FIT.N) dropped 15 percent after the fitness tracker maker's first-quarter profit forecast badly missed analysts' expectations..

UnitedHealth (UNH.N), Anthem (ANTM.N), Humana (HUM.N), Aetna (AET.N) and other insurers gained after the U.S. government proposed raising payments to health insurers who offer Medicare Advantage health benefits to elderly and disabled Americans.

UnitedHealth was up 3.05 percent, providing a major boost to the Dow.

Shares of Aerospace component suppliers Honeywell International Inc (HON.N) fell 1.95 percent and United Technologies Corp (UTX.N), a Dow component, rallied 4.69 percent after it was reported the two have held merger talks.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,389 to 676. On the Nasdaq, 1,974 issues rose and 829 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 19 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 38 new highs and 35 new lows.

About 7.1 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, below the roughly 9.1 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.