Today's rally: it's not about the January Nonfarm Payroll report.

The January Nonfarm Payroll report was slightly below expectations and not very inspiring. However, the upward revisions in November and December were significant. The bottom line is that the job market, after the revisions, was stronger last year than previously thought.

But there are other factors in today's rally:

1. First day of the month inflows. Volume heavier than normal. This was the biggest contributing factor cited by traders.
2. ISM, Consumer Confidence, and auto ales were stronger than expected.
3. China PMI came in lower than expectations, but people are still happy that it's still in growth territory.
4. For those in the "bad news is good news" camp, the unemployment rate ticked higher, implying the Fed will keep up its stimulus program.

Are we entering a new secular bull market for stocks...like the 1980's to 2000? Or the one from 2009 to 2012, when the S&P 500 rose more than 100 percent?

Stocks have been doing well because the Fed is keeping rates at zero, there is no where else to put money, companies are doing OK on cost cutting initiatives, and stocks are not overvalued on an historic basis.

But that is not enough. That will not take us to new highs for several years. We need more.

To do that...to make an argument that we should continue to rally for several more years, we would need to see much more robust GDP growth (over three percent), and also more robust revenues growth, which has been anemic.

What would get us GDP and revenue growth?

1) Clarification from Washington...a Grand Bargain that would encompass:

1. deficit reduction over 10 years (tax reform, entitlement reform, and discretionary spending reform in areas like defense), and
2. extension on the debt ceiling for, say, two years.
   

2) Clarification on Europe. First, the recession needs to stabilize, but beyond that policy initiatives that indicate a clear road to political, fiscal, and banking reforms, and an indication that Europe is truly serious about improving competitiveness.

3) A resumption of growth in emerging market economies, led by China.

4) the Fed successfully engineering a modest increase in interest rates without unleashing runaway inflation.

These are tall orders! But resolution of these issues would create a huge boost to business confidence. Capital expenditures and hiring would increase dramatically, and revenues would rise.

Finally, on a day when the Dow passed 14,000, it's worthwhile noting that the last time the Dow passed 14,000 in the fourth quarter of 2007, the valuations were higher…the forward P/E was 22 on the S&P 500…it's about 14 now.

What does it mean that the P/E was much higher? The historic average P/E for the S&P 500 is 15. So it means the market was overvalued on a historic basis in 2007, and somewhat undervalued today. An important distinction.

A tip of the hat to Steve Liesman, who asked me about this.

While there has been a lot of drama on the road back to Dow 14,000, it has been mostly an up move in the markets for the last four years, punctuated by a few hair-raising but brief down periods. (Read more: Stocks Jolted by Jobs Data; Dow Briefly Tests 14,000)

Currency wars are coming: Toyota Motor's happy, BMW is not. I've been talking about the coming currency wars for a while now. In Europe, the euro rally continues, at a 2.5-year high against the dollar, the yen collapse continues.

The U.S. at least gives lip service to a strong dollar, but Japan's Shinzo Abe has ignited the current currency wars by openly, blatantly declaring his intention to reflate Japan's economy by weakening the yen. The current head of the Bank of Japan will step down in April and will certainly be replaced with someone who will do Abe's bidding.

(Read More: Japan Leader Urges Swift Action From Central Bank)

Remember, one country's weak currency is another country's strong one: it's a zero sum game. In the past, currency wars have led to protectionism and capital controls, as well as tariffs as countries seek to protect their industries. Look what happened in the 1930s and 1970s when the U.S. finally abandoned the gold standard and devalued the dollar.

Wall Street is full of old chestnuts of investing wisdom. I don't put a lot of stock and store in most of them, but the January Barometer, devised by Yale Hirsch of the Stock Traders' Almanac in 1972, is one of those chestnuts that's had a strong record.

"As goes January, so goes the year" has been accurate 45 of the past 63 years, going back to 1950, according to the Stock Traders' Almanac.

That is an impressive 73 percent accuracy record.

And it's even better during the 11 times the S&P 500 has been up more than five percent in January...up all 11 times, with 10 of the 11 up double digits.

Wow. That's pretty amazing.

But it's not perfect. Two quibbles:

First, it's not always good at telling you what is going to happen between February and December. All it says is, if January is up, the year is usually up. If January is down, the year is usually down.

But that doesn't mean that February through December will be up.

For example, in 1987 the S&P 500 was up 13.2 percent in January, but ended up only two percent for the year. OK, that was the year of the October Crash.

But in 1960, the S&P 500 was down 7.1 percent in January, and ended the year down only three percent. The market moved up from the end of January.

And in 1990, the S&P 500 was down 6.9 percent in January, but ended the year down 6.6 percent. So essentially the market went nowhere after January.

Second, it hasn't been quite as accurate recently as in the past. For example, it was only accurate six of the last 12 years.

A better "old chestnut" is the Best Six Months Indicator...buy and hold the S&P 500 from November through April, then get out. From 1950 through 2011, an investment of $10,000 would have yielded a total gain of $1,878,516 in that time period.

Had you invested the same $10,000 from May to October, you would have experienced a LOSS of $6,724.

Wow. A GAIN of $1.87 million, versus a LOSS of $6,724.

Had you just BOUGHT AND HELD that $10,000 from 1950 through the end of 2011, you would have had a gain of $600,206.

Now THAT is a winning trade.

Overnight, the debate among traders was the "death by slow growth" fear, the one thing that is not baked into the bull scenario this year. It's this: that the biggest worry of traders — some macro event like a meltdown in Europe, or a downgrade of U.S. debt, or a debt ceiling meltdown — never happens. Instead, what happens is that growth just does not materialize. That what upends the stock market this year is just boring no growth? Gads.

For the moment, that is not the dominant emotion. The gross domestic product decline was largely written off as a slowdown in defense and inventory de-stocking. The decline yesterday was mild, the volume normal.

Regardless: At some point, we will need to see more growth ... and not just from housing.

The Fed Statement: steady as she goes.

Traders cared about two things in this Fed statement:

1. Outlook on the economy
2. Future of QE

1) The Economy. On the surface, it looks like the Fed outlook for the economy was more downbeat. In the first sentence, the Fed noted that "growth in economic activity paused in recent months," but then went on to say these were merely due to "weather-related disruptions and other transitory factors".

In other words, the Fed is not that worried. I wonder if they added that sentence after the dismal Q4 GDP figure came out this morning.

Regardless. The key phrase on the economy remained: "the Committee continues to see downside risks to the economic outlook," though they did remove the word "significant".

2) QE. The Fed answered in the affirmative, exactly reproducing its statement from the December 12 FOMC meeting: "the Committee will continue purchasing additional agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $40 billion per month and longer-term Treasury securities at a pace of $45 billion per month".

And they will keep doing it, again repeating the same sentence as the December 12 release: "...the Committee will continue its purchases of Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate, until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability".

Why are the major indices flat on a day when Q4 GDP came in so dismal? You do have to wonder...it's no surprise there are conspiracy theorists out there.

But the answers aren't hard to understand:

1. there's been big momentum in stocks that is not easily reversed,
2. a poor GDP number makes it likely the Fed will continues its stimulus programs, and
3. the market tends to rise on Fed days.

Most traders know the market tends to rise on Fed days, but here is statistical data from Laszlo Birinyi: on days when the Fed meet, the S&P 500 is up 65% of the time with an average gain of 0.43%.

Here's what's annoying: the following day, the S&P 500 is down 61% of the time, with an average loss of 0.42%.

In other words, on average the two days are almost a wash.

A second point about the midday action: don't just look at the Dow Industrials. Breadth is poor, and several sector leaders this month are much worse than the Dow: Transports down 1.1 percent, Russell 2000 down 0.5 percent, MidCap Index down 0.3 percent, and housing stocks (ITB) down 0.9 percent.

So how's the Big Bull Trade of 2013 doing? Pretty good, so far. I told you a few weeks ago that bulls were pushing a simple trade for 2013: short Treasuries, go long cyclical stocks, and long copper.

Here's how it looks:

The Big Bull Trade of 2013

• 7-10 Year Treasuries (IEF) -1.6%
• Cyclicals (CYC) 6.9%
• Copper Futures 2.6%

Not bad. I'll keep you up to date.

Futures fell, but only a few points, on the dismal fourth-quarter advance gross domestic product report, which came in at negative 0.1 percent, versus estimate of a gain of 1 percent. But as Greg Valliere has pointed out, the strong durable goods report on Monday indicates that "the fiscal cliff didn't inhibit business spending as much as feared." A strong jobs report on Friday — over 200,000, vs. current consensus of 65,000 — should it occur, will go a long way toward reducing the impact of that GDP report.

Well, if there is any bright side to the report, it's that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to make noises about ending its stimulus program any time soon.

Elsewhere:

Is top-line improving? Last quarter, almost every company came in flat or below analysts' expectations on revenues. Today, I am looking at 15 companies reporting, and only one — Jet Blue — has been below estimates. That is an important change in trend.

So far, of the 175 companies reporting in the S&P 500, 65 percent have beat revenue estimates, compared to only 38 percent last quarter. That is a huge improvement. Revenues are up 3.8 percent, earnings up 4.7 percent.

Elsewhere:

1) Housing just keeps getting better. D.R. Horton reported outstanding numbers.

Every metric was stronger than analysts' expectations: bottom line of $0.20 beat by six cents, revenues of $1.275 billion were up 41 percent, also above expectations. Orders were up 39 percent; average selling price was up 15 percent, and even gross margin of 18.8 percent was above expectations.