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Happy Friday, one and all. I tell you what... I know the weather forecast isn't great for some of you for the next couple of days, but this is the first weekend in a long time where the weather doesn't look completely miserable for any of you. There's some snow in the cards for parts of the Midwest on Saturday, but it doesn't look like anything stifling.

Yes, it's finally beginning to look a little like springtime.... at least until Wednesday, when yet-another wave of snow showers is going to hit parts of the Northeast. You have to give credit to Punxsutawney Phil, who pretty much nailed it this year.

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Happy Monday! Well, I suppose it wasn't entirely happy, given the market's response to this weekend's developments in Ukraine. Talk about a fast escalation! In less than a week the whole thing went from announcing new elections to a seizure of its parliament building to Russian troops taking over Crimea; an all-out (albeit small-scale) war could materialize at any moment. No wonder stocks are tanking. If this thing escalates and/or spreads, it could have a global ripple effect that impacts politics, society, and yes, it could even rock the investment world.

Gotta be honest though ... of all the things you as an investor have to worry about, what's going on in Ukraine is the absolute least of them. In fact, I don't even know that I'd bother worrying about what's going on there right now.

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Hello all. How as your Tuesday? As long as you didn't have any of your bitcoin money held with Mt. Gox, I suppose it wasn't too bad, huh? $367 million in virtual currency just gone missing. Geez, what a mess.

I can't say I'm surprised though. When all is said and done, bitcoins aren't actually a "thing". They're a premise. That's how they escape regulation, and that's how all that value (and I use the term loosely) got wiped away without any way of tracking down where it went and who got it.... if that value was actually stolen. How do you "steal" something that doesn't truly exist? Let's call a spade a spade... what was stolen is the real money that was represented by the virtual currency, and if those bitcoins were held as hard currency or real money, we wouldn't be having this discussion now.

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Is everybody ready for the weekend? Should be a good one for most people, although some of us might find a little rain in our immediate future. That's better than snow or cold. I'll take it.

Anyway, while Friday wasn't a particularly dramatic session, I think it did tell us a lot about the way investors are feeling right now.... or not feeling. More directly, this week - and Friday's action in particular - is telling us traders are bullish up to a point, but aren't willing to stick their neck out when push comes to shove. That's not an idea I just pulled out of a hat either; there's a specific, technical reason I'm saying it.

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Welcome back, everyone. How was your three-day weekend? It looks like some people are mentally making it a four-day weekend, as today's action was lethargic, and on low volume. Still, even lethargic days mean something in the grand scheme of things, so we'll do our usual thing. First though, we want to answer a reader question about gold, and we want to answer it with the data we didn't have in hand at the end of last week.... the Q4 gold supply/demand report from the World Gold Council.

Gold is Still Tarnished