You would never know by looking at all the snow around here, but people tell me that spring is right around the corner.

Let's take a look at the markets so far in 2010. Any statistics I use will be measured from Jan. 1 to Feb. 28. January was not pretty, but February made things look a little better.

Year-to-date the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 1 percent as is the Standard and Poor's 500. The Nasdaq Composite is down 1.4 percent.

Most of the indexes increased around 2-plus percent in February so we had a mini rally. Small company and mid-sized companies have done fairly well so far as the S&P Midcap index is actually up 1.6 percent, and the S&P Smallcap 600 index is just positive at .6 percent.

The Wilshire 5000, which measures most stocks traded, is up .05 percent year to date.

After seeing January returns, these numbers look ok in my view.

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Gold is up more than 2 percent year to date, and crude oil is almost even. Natural gas is down about 13 percent, which is fairly interesting in light of the rather harsh winter we have had so far in the east.

News stories are everywhere about all the drilling activity going on, particularly in the Marcellus shale region. The natural gas guys are drilling even with prices down. Wonder if they know something we don't know?

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Looking around the world, the Dow Jones Global Index, not including the United States, is down about 3 percent. For a change our domestic markets are doing better than the foreign.

The foreign markets had a really strong rally last year so maybe they are catching their breath.

The worst market outside the U.S. is Spain, which is down more than 13 percent. There actually are some foreign markets showing positive, just positive, returns. Those include Venezuela up about 2 percent, Israel up about 1 percent, Switzerland up 2 percent, and Sweden just barely positive at .1 percent.

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As we look at the bond related markets, not much is happening. Money market yields are still under 1 percent. If you are a CD buyer, 5 year CDs are yielding around 2.6 percent and 30-year fixed mortgages average around 5.1 percent.

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As markets seem to be catching their breath, this is a great time for you to be reviewing your investment portfolio.

Are you comfortable with what you are holding? Have you reviewed your account this year with your adviser? How about taxes? Most of the 1099s should be out so your tax guy should have most of the information.

I always advise investors to not be in any hurry to file. It's unusual but sometimes mutual funds or other types of investments will send out corrected 1099s and you really don't want to have filed and then have to correct it. Talk to your tax person and ask them what they think.

How about your 2009 Individual Retirement Account contribution? You have until April 15 to make them, so don't forget.

We have talked about this before but the resiliency of the stock market over the past months has been interesting to watch. Every time we think the market is in for a huge correction, it rallies and surprises everyone. No one knows what is going to happen in the future, but it has been interesting to watch.

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I was telling my wife this story the other day. Farmer John's son, Sam, went to New York City to make his fortune. Unfortunately, he became a financial adviser on Wall Street and during the recent market gyrations he lost his job and all his money and found himself reduced to shining shoes for a living.

At the same time, I told her, a run of unusually good weather resulted in an abundance of late season hay down back at the farm. Thus, the farmer makes hay, while the son shines.

She doesn't think I'm funny.

Howie Pentony is a Saxonburg client portfolio manager.