Good Thursday afternoon, everyone. Well, the bulls did the best they could today, hanging on as long as they could. Once push came to shove later in the session though, that was it. As bad as the day was for stocks, it's was even worse for the U.S. dollar. Indeed, the U.S. dollar was absolutely crushed today, pushing the U.S. Dollar Index to the brink of a major meltdown... a meltdown that could actually do a lot of people a lot of good. Let's get today's party started there. U.S. Dollar on the Brink I can't believe more people weren't talking about this today. But, that's ok. The more you know that other people don't know gives you a much bigger trading edge. What I'm talking about, of course, is the slow (but accelerating) demise of the U.S. dollar. We've been talking about it for a while, but the potential pullback started to turn into a real concern today when the U.S. Dollar Index plowed into the first of three key support levels that - if broken - could start a serious unraveling of the currency. Here's the zoomed-in version which offers the details. Here's the full-screen version that puts the whole deterioration in perspective. There's not a lot of support left below 93.30. I know the counter-argument to my bearish thesis is that the chart of the greenback is completely unpredictable, as it's a political and economic weapon that's taken on a life of its own. I don't disagree. I simply contend the U.S. dollar is also a reflection of how opinions and outlooks change over time, and if the U.S. Dollar Index breaks below 93.3, the global opinions are going to turn bearish on the dollar in a hurry and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. In any case, a bunch of you have asked me what you can do, trading-wise, to play the brewing pullback from the U.S. dollar if for no other reason than to hedge the possible short-term pullback in stocks it may cause. There are ways, but I don't want to oversimplify the issue - some ways are better than others. The best answer I can offer in response is, become a member of the Elite Opportunity service, because the nuances of the dollar's weakness and the subsequent strength in most commodities is a moving target. John Monroe and his crew are keeping much better tabs on those shifting nuances than I am. In fact, he went into detail on the matter in today's EO, saying: "On both a short and long-term basis, XXXXX continues to look very attractive. I've included two charts below, a monthly chart of the U.S. Dollar index, which measures the strength of the dollar against the other major world currencies, and a weekly chart of XXXXX. As you can see, the dollar appears to continue to gravitate to a long-term 3/8th's retracement level, while the weekly chart of XXXXX appears to be on the verge of another breakout move. See the consolidation I've point to here? The fact that XXXXX found its way below its 3X3 DMA weeks ago for only a three weeks, and has now found its way back above it suggests to me [removed by editor] is going higher. If that ends up being the case, I'm looking at roughly $128 and change on the XXXXX's before it's all said and done, which is long-term 3/8th's retracement level from its October 2012 high to last year's low. If stocks start to unravel, [removed by editor] is likely going to be a huge benefactor. Furthermore, if you refer back to this monthly chart of the dollar, when we consider a high dollar is posing problems for corporate America as it relates to revenue from abroad, and you consider the extremely key confluence arrow I've pointed to at the lower level of this monthly chart here, I suspect that's where the dollar may finally end up when it's all said and done." Sorry I had to remove the details on the specific instrument John is using as the best way to play the dollar's impending weakness right now, but we can't give away the details EO members alone are supposed to be privy to. You get the idea though - John's got a good idea of where the greenback is going, and which instrument is going to move the most because of it. I'm not going to issue a dollar-induced trade here in this free newsletter. If you want help making that play (and there will be more than one of them before it's all said and done), you have to become an EO member. You'll be glad you did. Just go here, or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/pages/SCNEO/v1/ The Ugly Impact of Oil's Setback It's complete coincidence that we're taking this detailed look at the trouble oil has caused for marketwide earnings on the same day oil rallied 2% to reach new multi-week highs. It's fortunate timing though. Just for the record, the energy sector as a whole lost money again in the first quarter. Specifically, the S&P 500 Energy Sector Index (currently valued at 508.2) is on pace to report a Q1 net loss of 60 cents per share for Q1. That's much better than the $8.20 per share loss the index booked in Q4 of last year, but it's still a far cry from the $10.00 per share in quarterly profits the index was reporting in 2013. The good news is, the oil and gas sector seems to be coming out of the earnings storm, particularly now that crude oil prices are rising, and may continue to do so - in earnest - now that the dollar is close to breaking down. The bad news is, it's going to take a while for weak oil prices to let energy's earnings fully recover. The question is, to what extent can an oil recovery restore the S&P 500's overall earnings and (hopefully) justify the current market valuation? We have an answer. As of the latest look, the S&P 500 is on pace to earn $25.35 for Q1 of this year. That's down a bit from the Q1-2015 bottom line of $25.81, which is down a bit from the Q1-014 per-share profit of $27.32. Our earnings breakdown chart makes it clear which sectors are the weakest link.... or sector. It's energy. Everything else its holding its own. Said another way, if the energy sector had contributed its usual $3.40-ish bottom line to the S&P 500's Q1 per-share profit, the index would actually be on pace to earn $28.93 for last quarter. At that level, the trailing P/E would be something around 18.0 rather than the trailing P/E of 20.7 it's trading at now. A P/E of 18.0 is something I can live with, particularly when all sectors are driving earnings growth. A P/E of 20.7 is something I can't really live with though. That's why this recent rebound effort from crude oil is such a big deal for the broad market's net earnings, and why the weakening U.S. dollar could be game-changing. A weaker dollar also restores profit-growth for a bunch of our multinational companies as well as for our energy stocks. It wouldn't take a whole lot on either front to make a big, beneficial difference in the market's earnings. Now you've got something few other people recognize.