Well folks, it's pretty clear at this point traders are sticking to the sidelines, mostly waiting on the Federal Reserve to tell us something in the midst or aftermath of this week's big meeting. There's going to be plenty of rhetoric and chatter when it's over tomorrow... the kind that can move the market. Yeah, the market was up today, even if it faded a little from the high. Volume was rock-bottom, however, meaning most folks just didn't want to take the risk of being in or out of a new trade headed into whatever Bernanke and his friends are going to say tomorrow afternoon. The only people who were digging in today - and there weren't many of them - were the kamikazes betting the Fed's going to be dovish. The thing is, their buying effort may have done some of the work the market's been needing done for a while. Namely, the S&P 500 closed above its 20-day moving average line today for the first time since late May. It also closed above the less-important horizontal ceiling around 1648. One day does not make a trend, but all trends start with that first step. I'm still mentally on the sidelines here, and I think you should be too. Despite today's advance, I've still got a nagging feeling the upper Bollinger band at 1670.66 (and falling) could present a problem once tested - if it's tested - even if the bulls manage to follow through from here. I have to give credit where's it's due though: The bulls won the day, and started taking back some important ground. Check back tomorrow for the next installment of the saga. Mixed Message Though all eyes are on the Fed meeting this week, there's still other stuff going on. Namely, we're still getting housing market data, with a big dose of it coming today - housing starts and building permits for May. The bottom line is, permits fell from an annual pace of 1.005 million to 974,000. Housing starts grew from a pace of 856,000 to 914,000. I know we've been cheering the housing market's expansion of late, but I gotta be honest here... it seems like it's trying to level off. What's interesting is how homebuilder confidence reached a seven year high just yesterday; seven years ago is when the real estate market was hitting its peak, right before it all came unraveled. You have to wonder if this peak in confidence is once again a sign that real estate has topped out. The difference between then and now is, then, lenders and bond-buyers were hyper-levered. This time, there are a lot of cash buyers, and lenders aren't closing their eyes and passing out money to anybody and everybody. Either way (and this is something the media isn't explaining), the pace of real estate and construction activity has really flattened out. This should be something at least a little worrisome to you. On the flipside, is it really possible homebuilders have held off on starts just to keep prices (and margins) high? That's what a CNBC commentator suggested this afternoon. I don't think it's happening anywhere near to the extent the commentary would imply, although it is something to keep in the back of your head. I just have a hard time believing builders are turning down the bird in the hand with the intent of collecting the two in the bush. The only other major economic news was the inflation rate as of last month. The annualized CPI change now stands at 1.36%. That's healthier than the lull to 1.06% we saw for April, but frankly, it's still pretty weak. If the economy was truly healthy, we'd be seeing inflation rates of at least 2.0%, and even as high as 3.0%. I don't think we could deal with 3.0% inflation right now, but we should want something around 2.0% for the current environment. Whatever the case, the uptick at least opened up the possibility that we don't need a ton more stimulus. That's actually bad for stocks. Did You See? Finally, I wasn't planning on featuring anything posted at the website today, but I found something I really think is worth making a point of seeing - John Udovich's look at how things are shaping up for Tractor Supply (TSCO) now that bankrupt Orchard Supply Hardware Stores (OSH) is largely being acquired by Lowe's (LOW). It's an interesting comparison. While technically they're all hybrid hardware/gardening stores, all three retailers cater to a slightly different audience in a slightly different way. John makes some key points about what went wrong with Orchard Supply, and how Tractor Supply may be able to exploit that if Lowe's makes missteps. That being said, while John Udovich's examination of Tractor Supply is good, the kind of analysis the guys over at the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity are doing is better. Most of the time the SCN EO trades stocks, but money is money, and opportunity is opportunity. Today they walked into an opportunistic ETF trade. I can't tell you what it is; that kind of information is reserved for the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity's subscribers. I can't even give you the write-up explaining the pick, because you might figure out what they bought from their discussion. But, I can show you the chart of the exchange-traded fund they bought, and that chart alone might convince you to take these guys up on the free two-week trial. Here it is. As you can tell, the uptrend's been alive and well since 2010. More recently, it's been working on a ceiling (again) that was a factor in early 2011. Between the bullish undertow and the likelihood of strength once that horizontal resistance line is knocked over, there's a surprising amount of upside with this ETF. You just have to be a subscriber to find out what it is. Thing is, if you're not a subscriber right now, you can still find out what the pick is with the two-week trial offer. Click here to do it. Or, copy and paste the following link in your browser: http://www.smallcapnetwork.com/?vmpd_ckstr[click_track]=SCN+Newsletter&vmpd_ckstr_redirect=/pages/SCNEO/v1/