While investors continue to focus on big-picture headline risks - earnings, the election, the US fiscal cliff, Europe's ongoing financial crisis and recession, and China's growth slowdown - they may be missing some positive economic developments in the US that help explain stocks' robust performance since June.

David Fuller's view The Weekly View contains an interesting graph: S&P 500 and the Citigroup US Economic Surprise Index, which veteran subscribers may have seen before. I do not find it particularly reassuring at current levels.