The Economy: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...

The Good: The manufacturing data in the U.S. continues to improve, at least within the confines of the major diffusion indices.

The Bad: The U.S. income and spending numbers were hardly stellar. It remains to be seen how much of the weakness was weather-related, but consumer spending dipped -0.1% in January - the first decline since April 2010. The fact is that consumers kept a lid on their spending even with the fiscal windfall in January, pushing the savings rate up to a four-month high of 5.8% from 5.4% in both November and December.

The Ugly: The housing sector remains in the dumpster.

Source: "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" by David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff