It's official: the S&P 500 Index is now up 100 percent from its low of 666.79 back in March 2009. It was the fastest double in stock prices since 1936. And it is not over.

I have suggested several times in past columns past that a big move in stocks would come when individual investors sold their bond holdings, gathered their courage, and returned to the stock market. That time may be upon us.

Consider that this is the fifth week in a row that inflows into domestic stock funds have increased. A total of $21.3 billion moved into equity mutual funds in January. The first week in February saw an additional $5.85 billion and last week another $9.3 billion flowed into equities.

The

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There was a time when municipal bonds were a staid but safe investment. Tax conscious investors, widows and orphans would plow money into these debt issues of towns, cities and state municipalities fully expecting price stability and a predicable stream of interest payments. No more.

What makes municipal bonds appealing to many investors is that interest income received by holders of municipal bonds is often exempt from federal income tax and from the income tax of the state in which they are issued. But ever since the financial crisis and the recession that had accompanied it, state and local governments have had a hard time of it and their bonds have reflected that trading in a wide

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U.S. Treasury bond interest rates are rising. Since August, the yield on the 30-year bond has risen over one percent, the 10-year is up 118 basis points and the five year is up 102 basis points. For those unfamiliar with the government bond market these are moves akin to the stock market rising 50 percent.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. The Federal Reserve Bank's second quantitative easing (QEII) was meant to keep interest rates low, provide even more liquidity to the markets and, hopefully, convince banks to lend more to cash-strapped consumers — or so we thought. The opposite appears to be happening.

This is a positive development in my opinion. Here's why:

When an

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This coming week will be a humdinger for the markets. The Federal Reserve is expected to begin a second round of quantitative easing and voters will deliver their verdict on the economy in mid-term elections. Both events will have ramifications for investors and stock markets worldwide.

The Fed's decision to further stimulate the economy via a second round of quantitative easing (QE II) has already been priced into the market, in my opinion, but the impact of the mid-term elections has not. If the Republicans gain a majority in the House and additional seats in the Senate, as many political pundits predict, then the markets have reason to rally in the months, if not weeks ahead.

For

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