Good Tuesday everybody. By the time you read this, Apple (AAPL) will have posted last quarter's earnings. Unfortunately I have to write and prep the newsletter before the closing bell to get it sent in a timely manner, so I can't tell you what Apple's numbers for Q1 are. But, I'm sure you'll be able to find them somewhere. I honestly can't say I care what the tech giant's first quarter results look like. I can tell you, however, pretty much everyone has their eyes on Apple, and whatever it reports on Tuesday will almost certainly have a ripple effect - good or bad - on the rest of the market. I'll have some thoughts for you tomorrow. For now, just know Apple's at center-stage. Also, something else that directly involves you... We mention it from time to time, but we can't say it often enough - we read every e-mail you guys send us. Whether it's a critique, praise, request, feedback, question, or whatever, we read them all. In fact, we got a great request yesterday. Peter writes, "Always enjoy reading your analysis. One question: would you mind updating your outlook for gold/silver for the near/medium term? You were spot on with your call for both to break support, but you had also mentioned that you thought silver could go to $17 if it broke the $26 level. Do you still feel that will happen?" Thanks for the question Peter, and thanks for reminding us we had a loose end to tie-up. We can't get to it today, but yes, we'll do a complete update of our precious metals outlook tomorrow (unless something crazy happens between now and then). Whether you trade these metals too, or just stocks, gold and silver have an impact on everyone's portfolio and we need to keep track of where they're headed. If there are any other topic requests you'd like to see us cover, go ahead and send 'em on in. For now we've got a couple of other items to cross of our checklist. Featured Stock Set to Take Off As promised back when we put SemiLEDS (LEDS) in the spotlight with the April 17th newsletter, we're going to start doing more dissection of stocks we really like, and stocks we think are better-than-average opportunities right now. On the operating table today is Featured Stock Parametric Sound (PAMT). First and foremost, this is a story stock, which is the gentle way of letting you know the valuation doesn't make much conventional sense, but the underlying company/product is compelling enough to offset any weakness left behind by actual results. It also means we're not interested in marrying the stock, but we're more than willing to date it as long as PAMT shares keep rallying... and they are. As a matter of fact, the renewal of the rally is the very reason I bring it up today. Parametric Sound is a designer and manufacturer of audio speakers. Everybody and their uncle seem to be in the business, so that alone is no biggie. What makes PAMT different - and perhaps trade-worthy - is how its speakers direct sound to a specific point or place... kind of like a laser does with light. It may sound a little pointless to you and me, but customers don't agree. Then again, its customers aren't consumers. These speakers have use in ATMs and interactive kiosks. Rather than blast an individual's personal information to anyone walking buy an ATM when the message gets blurted out, these speakers direct the audio message straight at the user's ears (and nowhere else). Parametric is gaining traction too. The company's revenues have grown from $34K in Q2 of 2012 to $109K for the fourth quarter of last year, and that was before the company put its product-launch and marketing effort into high gear. Based on what the company's doing now that it wasn't doing at the end of last year, Parametric Sound anticipates being cash-flow-positive by 2014. No, it's not a profit, but for a small cap start up, positive cash flow is often more than enough to get traders excited. In fact, traders are already getting excited, and that's getting me excited. There's no way to deny the runup from PAMT earlier in the year was a little too much, too fast. Veteran traders probably (and rightfully so) didn't chase that initial move, which fizzled out beginning in early April. The stock pulled back from a high of $21.99 to a low of $14.52 just a couple of weeks ago. Look at what's happened in the meantime, however. The bulls are back at it, pushing the stock up again. Is this move a repeat of the February/March move? Maybe. The one thing I admittedly don't like about the current rally is the lack of volume behind it. I suspect PAMT will have to pull back one more time in order to fully clean its slate before making a monster-sized bullish move. Overall though, I think this one's worth putting on your watchlist if not in your portfolio, if for no other reason than it being an interesting story the market clearly likes. Yes, I know that wasn't a long or deep analysis. I'd honestly like to give you more, but we just don't have the time or space here in the free newsletter. If you're looking for in-depth and independent analysis of stocks though, I can tell you exactly where to get it - the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity. In simplest terms, that's what those guys do. Every day. They've also been navigating the market's ebbs and flows like a surgeon, so if all this marketwide volatility is getting on your nerves, the SCN EO can help. Learn more about it here. 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/ Here We Go Again The market may have been up sharply today, but so what? We saw similar moves like the current one just three weeks ago, and the only thing that rally did was set us up for a bigger pullback. Like I said to you yesterday, the market's MO of late has been to crash just when it looks like it's ready to roar, or to bounce just when it looks like it's falling off the edge of the cliff. Why would this time be any different? I've got a feeling this is just another setup for a sharp pullback too. But I digress. What I really want to do is complain about the way the bulls and buyers don't have the ability to pace themselves. The S&P 500 has rallied well over 2.0% in just three days. That's great, but it gives all the would-be profit-takers little choice but to lock in gains while they have them in hand. If the market could just grind out a couple of basis points' worth of gain per day for a couple of weeks, it might unsuspectingly sneak past its current ceiling and move on to higher highs. But no, this all-or-nothing mentality (and the ability to turn that sentiment on a dime) is the worst thing the bulls could be doing to themselves. That's not necessarily a bearish call.... at least not yet. As we saw in early April, the S&P 500 may well rally the rest of this week, right up to the upper 20-day Bollinger band at 1594, which just so happens to be the peak level from two weeks ago. Just like it was then, though, it's the perfect/logical spot to start dumping stocks again. Oh, it'll also draw in a few unsuspecting optimists on the way up, but it did the same in early April only to sucker-punch them once most of them had piled on. My expectation now - after seeing today's pop - is for a retest of the 1591 level, and then another pullback. [The VIX still has room to keep moving lower too, though that's another story.] Only this time, that pullback could much deeper than last week's selloff to 1540 did. I don't think we'll see any major setbacks en route to 1594, although I don't expect to get there in a perfect straight line either. Today's excessively strong move set up some immediate profit-taking pressure that will have to be worked off first, as in Wednesday or Thursday. Caveat: While I'm leaning bearishly, take a look at this weekly chart of the S&P 500. The fact of the matter is, the market's still trapped between rising support and resistance lines. Until that lower support line is broken, the bears don't have a foothold worth worrying about. What a freakin' mess. Stick around though, because anything can happen in the midst of earnings season.