Welcome to the weekend. Well, almost. We've got a little time left in the workweek, and a few pieces of business to take care of. "I expect there will be many more" The words say all that needs to be said. "I expect there will be many more." That's what Rose Romero - a former federal prosecutor and regional director for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission - said about a flash wave of cybercrime that drained $45 million worth of cash from ATMs in just a few hours. A handful of guys hacked some (apparently a lot) of prepaid debit card data, made their own access codes, and then told accomplices in 27 different countries how to go about making the illegal withdrawals. My point? I'm going to refer you back to the March 13th edition of the newsletter. That's when we explained how cybersecurity was going to be a huge issue as well as a huge opportunity for investors, not just this year, but well into next year. It was Michelle Obama's credit card data being hacked that prompted us to make that a hot button for 2013, but if you needed any more convincing that this is a huge problem, will a $45 million cyber-heist do the trick? I'm telling you, this isn't a flash-in-the-pan buzz. This is for real, and clearly it's a problem that needs to be fixed. Somebody's gonna have to pay some good money to fix it too. Yeah, I've got a few specific publicly-traded companies in mind that will benefit from this trend, but I'm not going to talk about any of them - at least not yet, and maybe not at all. When the cybersecurity issue first popped up a few weeks ago, I was talking to the guys over at the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity about it, and they saw it as a major investment-worthy theme too. Thing is, they can do a lot more with a theme like this one than I could, including picking a specific stock as a way to play it. If you really want to put the idea into action, I suspect the SCN EO will actually have the top pick for you if any of them become worth a shot. Here's the deal. 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/ More Mixed Signals Yeah, stocks may have been up today, but it was a light-volume effort. I'm still not impressed, and I still don't think the market can go higher from here without going more than a little lower first. I suppose there's a chance of a melt-up, where the higher the market goes, the more people want in, pushing it even higher, causing more people to want in, etc. The cycle is a real exercise in insanity, until the music stops and it all comes unraveled in a hurry. Thing is, it feels like we've been in melt-up mode since mid-April, so how much more upside can there be left to tap? I'm sticking with my near-term bearish theory, but acknowledging that a move above this week's ceiling around 1634 could spur another small leg of the melt-up. It won't change the inevitable outcome here, however, which is a retreat to the lower Bollinger band line. But hey - sometimes it's the tail wagging the dog rather than the dog wagging the tail, meaning the market's momentum sometimes dictates which news is featured and how it's interpreted rather than the other way around. This is one of those times. That's why I don't think any of us should dig in too deep here and get married to any kind of market prediction, as a dog can be quick to change it's mind. Don't sweat it for now. I mostly have a feeling traders were heading out early this week to start long weekends. The market's true undertow should become a little clearer when next week's action starts. The Coming Week For the second week in a row we don't have any FDA news in the lineup. Then again, what we're not worried about on the biotech and pharmaceutical front we're more than making up for with a barrage of economic news. A bunch of it is pretty important too, like Monday's retail sales for April, and Thursday's inflation data for last month. Housing starts and building permits will be posted on Thursday too. We still contend that the economy's most important data long-term data, though, will be Wednesday's industrial productivity levels for April. Here's the full calendar. Yes, we'll look at each of those items next week when the time comes. Earnings season is also winding down; we've only got nine S&P 500 companies reporting next week. It's going to be a particularly telling week for retail, with all of it coming on Thursday. That's when Wal-Mart (WMT), Kohl's (KSS), and Nordstrom (JWN) report last quarter's numbers. Two of the three are expected to show improvements in the year-over-year bottom line. OK, It's Not Much Better After All For what it's worth 93% of the market has reported Q1's numbers, and the S&P 500 is all but sure to have earned $25.96 for the quarter. That's actually a tad lower than $26.20 that Standard & Poor's had calculated a week ago. But, it's also a pretty good step back towards the original $25.49 the pros were expecting before earnings season started. [We're still closer to $26.20 than $25.49, but not by a lot.] Speaking of... Since we opened the valuation can of worms yesterday by responding to some thoughts from Morgan Stanley's David Darst, we may as well follow up today. As of the latest calculations, the S&P 500 is priced at a trailing P/E of 16.52. That's not necessarily 'frothy', but I sure wouldn't call it cheap either. The forward-looking P/E of 14.44 is a little more palatable, but assumes that year-over-year earnings will grow at an average pace of 14.7% over the next four quarters before slowing to a pace of 12.1% in 2014. Anything's possible, but do you really think the same economic environment everyone seems to be complaining about now is going to foster double-digit growth beginning in Q3 of this year? Seems tough to believe. I'm not saying earnings are going to shrink. But, I am saying it's going to be tough to actually meet current expectations, and disappointment can cause big problems for stocks. Anyway, that's bigger-picture stuff, and we can worry about that when the time comes. For now let's just keep on navigating the short-term market. And before that, let's make sure to have a great weekend.