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Happy Monday everyone. We hope you all had a good weekend, and we also hope your trading week got started on the right foot today. Either way, there's some poking and prodding we want to do for you so you can make the most of the rest of this week.

First and foremost, how about today's action from stocks? In a word, kaboom. The headlines blamed uncertainty surrounding Italy's election, but those are some tough dots to connect; nobody really cared about Italy a few days ago, and nothing actually surprising about the election has surfaced. As we mentioned on Wednesday or Thursday of last week, the market's looking for a reason to sell. If it looks hard enough, it'll find it.

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Want to know why stocks have basically gone nowhere (on a net basis) for the better part of February? The time of year, the looming sequester, and a tepid earnings season are all at the top of the list of popular answers, but I don't think any of those explanations are the ultimate cause for this mixed up market. No, there's something bigger going on right now.

I had a bit of an epiphany this afternoon as I was scouring the news. See if you can figure out the big does of reality I had to swallow - just by reading the headlines - before beginning the weekend.

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We hope everyone's Thursday is going well so far, despite the market's second tumble in a row. The Fed's scare from yesterday lingered into today, and the usual bears like Nouriel Roubini were more than happy to fan the bearish flames. He's more than welcome to sound off however he wants, but it doesn't really change the point we made yesterday... the bigger trend is still bullish, and will remain so until we get some sort of confirming move that the rally has been broken. In the meantime, all this weakness is just a natural corrective move (and not even a very deep-cutting one at that).

Yes, we're going to update our technical look at the overall market in a second, but first, we have to get to the look at gold's fundamentals we promised you last week.

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Hey all, we hope Wednesday's trading treated you well. We mentioned to you yesterday we'd be diving into gold's fundamentals today, but given what we saw unfold for both the broad market as well as gold's chart, we're going to table that look for the time being and instead touch on a more pressing issue for all of you - stocks, and what the heck to think about gold right now.

Let's just dig in.

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Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Well, we have to give credit to the bulls - it may not make sense, but they're just not giving up. After what would have normally been a rally-ending bearish open this morning, the buyers got up, brushed themselves off, and were back at it my mid-day. Just amazing. As "they" suggest, don't fight the tape.

The funny thing is, there wasn't really much market-moving news. Warren Buffett and private equity firm 3G (which is an odd couple in itself) are aiming to acquire Heinz (HNZ) at a 20% premium, while Apple (AAPL) is reportedly getting serious about TV, with rumors of an Apple TV event to happen sometime in March. US Airways (LCC) and American Airlines (AAMRQ) are merging, but that may be a case of the blind leading the blind.