Sometimes, the smartest thing traders can do is just grab a seat on the sidelines…

Risk has a habit of showing up when you least expect it…

Over in the gold market, there’s something interesting happening…

There’s plenty of energy available for a larger-scale move. The jobs report just might be the catalyst…

Don’t let your guard down…

It’s late night on Memorial Day. The last wine cork has been popped. The coals on the barbeque have gone cold. There’s a pile of pool towels dampening the tiles on the side of the Jacuzzi. And stock futures have just opened for trading – down one point. It looks like we’re going to start this week pretty much the same way we ended the last one: in a tight, lethargic trading range.

The stock market ground to another new all-time high yesterday. The S&P 500 rolled right over the negative divergence that had built up on the intraday charts over the past three days, and closed at 2415. The bulls are in control. They have the momentum. The market can certainly press higher from here. But, I have to warn you… there’s danger ahead. Any further gains in the market in the short term are likely to be given back over the next few weeks.

Some days, there just isn’t much of anything new to say. This is one of those days. Stocks pressed higher again yesterday – though it was lethargic, tired action. The S&P 500 challenged the 2400 level and was turned back, closing at 2398. With the S&P trading above its 9-day exponential moving average (EMA), the bulls keep the momentum. Most technical indicators are neutral and grinding ever so slowly towards overbought territory. The Volatility Index (VIX) closed below 11 once again. It continues to warn of complacency.

If you had fallen asleep last Tuesday evening, and then just woke up this morning, you wouldn’t notice anything different about the stock market. You wouldn’t know the S&P 500 suffered a 43-point drop last Wednesday. You wouldn’t know about the three-day-rally since then that has nearly recovered the entire decline.