I've been dreading the retail sales report that was due today, but the good news is that it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting.

Retailers posted a 0.3% increase in sales last month. After retail sales plunged 0.4% in December, Wall Street was expecting a 0.3% decline for January. This is very important because half of all consumer spending is retail sales, and consumer spending makes up two-thirds of the total economy.

What this means is that a market retest is now less likely. The risk of a retest is still there, but it's diminishing. Today's report should help calm recession fears and give a much-needed boost to stock prices.

Conservative investors can now start bargain-hunting. If you're a conservative investor, I recommend that you "dollar cost average" over the next one to two-and-half months to get fully invested. Your objective should be to get fully-invested by mid-March to early May.

I have to warn you--business spending is still a problem, but it should firm up now that inventories are low. We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.