Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT), S&P 500 (.INX): This Was the Week’s Most Important Trend

More broadly, this spat of data is suggestive of another episode in this halting, “stop-start” recovery, which continues to struggle to gain any significant traction. As Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers told investors on Wednesday: “Last quarter, I described a continued slow recovery. This recovery is more mixed and inconsistent than others I’ve seen.”

Are money managers seeing something the rest of us are missing? Possibly, but I can’t help but be concerned that this year’s stock market gains have run ahead of the fundamentals. Unless we get another batch of positive economic data — or the Fed puts off the tapering of its monthly bond purchases — expect a pick-up in volatility through the end of the year.

The article This Was the Week’s Most Important Trend originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Alex Dumortier, CFA has no position in any stocks mentioned; you can follow him on LinkedIn. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.