The market was again strong Tuesday, up almost 60 points for the Dow (NYSE: DIA), as earnings season is officially underway with Alcoa (NYSE: AA) starting off with strong first quarter results. Both the NASDAQ (NYSE: NDX) and S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) finished higher, too.  All of the stock markets are demonstrating momentum after the record setting first quarter of 2013.

Alcoa, the aluminum behemoth and Dow Jones member earned an operating profit of $0.11 a share, topping last year’s bottom line of $0.10.  Alcoa also beat the Wall Street analyst community projections of between $0.08 and $0.09 a share in earnings  However, revenue did fall for Alcoa by about 3%.  Leading the charge today were 453 new stocks hitting new highs.

Only 67 hit now lows, manifesting strength across the markets.  Overall, gainers outnumbered the losers 3365 to 2734.  The markets did finish weak however, with the Dow candlestick patterns starting an engulfing formation of long negative bodies at shortly before 3 pm.  The same candlestick patterns prevailed for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.  As a result, bearish sentiment was at 63% when the closing bell rang.

What does have the market keyed up about the American economy despite the weak close today is the continued strong performance of natural gas.  The exchange traded fund for natural gas, United States Natural Gas (NYSE: UNG), is up for the last week, month, quarter, six months and years.  Thanks to greater natural gas production, the United States recently become a net energy exporter for the first time in decades. 

If the Obama Administration approves more export licenses for liquefied natural gas and the Keystone Pipeline, the United States will be exporting even more fossil fuel products.  The International Energy Agency predicts that the United States will be producing more oil than any other country within five years.   The strength of the UNG is shown in the chart below: