Happy Tuesday, fellow traders. We mentioned this to you yesterday, but it bears repeating today - we can't jump to any conclusions based on Tuesday's action any more than we could have jumped to bearish conclusions based on last Friday's tumble (nor any more than we could have jumped to bullish conclusions following the Fed's "no taper after all" rally). The market's getting bumped around here like a tumbleweed, just drifting in the direction of that day's wind. In our case the wind is the media's rhetoric, which wouldn't be a big deal, except for the fact that the media's take on things has been constantly changing recently. Regardless, the hand we've been dealt is the hand we've got to play, so we've still got to glean what we can - as best we can - from the charts even if they're not being very forthcoming with clues. We'll do exactly that below, right after a quick review of some fairly relevant data posted today. Housing Remains Hot Don't know if you saw it or not, but we got a couple of relatively important pieces of economic data today. I don't want to dwell on them, but we do want to take a closer look at them because they may actually impact stocks you own, or the market as a whole. First and foremost, it was a huge day for real estate fans. We heard two different - but confirming - numbers regarding home prices. Both were up, extending what's become an undeniable long-term uptrend. The Case-Shiller 20-City Index (of home prices) said the average price of a house grew from $159.4K in June to $162.5K for July. That July reading was 12.4% better than the year ago figure. We also got the FHFA home price report telling us the price of the average home grew from $203.5K in June to $205.5K for July. That's an 8.5% year-over-year improvement. Both readings are now at multi-year highs. For the record, those price/index levels are now a couple of months old, and it's possible things could have changed a bit in August and so far for September. But, it's unlikely they've changed significantly, and with interest rates falling back from their early September peak, mortgage loans rates are moving back to highly-affordable levels. The yield on ten-year treasuries has pulled back from near 3.0% earlier in the month to only 2.7% now. That's still higher than the rates near 2.0% we were enjoying before May, but that's still historically low, and rates are still falling. That in turn should spur real estate purchases more than it will cause would-be buyers to think they have plenty of time to make a purchase. We'll hear August's new home sales number tomorrow. Economists say the pace should slump from July's 394,000 to 390,000 this time around. We'll see. The other economic data nugget we got today was the Conference Board's consumer confidence score for this month. Now, I'll go ahead and let you know now the media worked very hard to put a negative spin on the data, and probably convinced more than a handful of traders that confidence is crumbling. That's a gross exaggeration of how confidence has struggled over the past couple of weeks, though. The truth is, confidence is still solid, and its bigger uptrend is still intact. The nearby chart puts it all in perspective. The Conference Board's confidence index fell from 81.8 to 79.7 for September. Yeah, it was a four-month low for the measure. You know what though? We've seen lots of four-month lows since hitting bottom in 2009, and confidence rebounded pretty well from every one of them, moving on to higher highs. There's no reason to think confidence levels won't bounce back this time around too. We'll get the final Michigan Sentiment Index reading for September on Friday. The pros are looking for a similar drop, from August's final score of 82.10 to 77.3 this time around. Our take is still the same though... it's not going to be a game-changing dip, even if the media paints a pessimistic picture with the data. Here Comes the Rebou.... Never Mind Well, that was interesting. The market spent the better part of the day in the black, but when push came to shove late in the session, the bulls didn't have the guts to hold onto their trades overnight. Heck, when it was all said and done, the selling effort later in the day ended up being a higher volume affair. It's not exactly the kind of thing that gives investors a warm-n-fuzzy feeling, ya know? Here's the thing - despite the fact that we just logged our fourth losing day in a row, I still don't see enough convincing evidence on our charts to say the market's in big trouble here (and bear in mind that mine's been one of the most pessimistic voices out there of late). I wasn't kidding above when I said the market was little more than a tumbleweed, blowing aimlessly in whatever direction the wind decides to blow that morning. I searched high and low for an actual reason stocks turned tail today, and I couldn't find one... perhaps other than the ongoing budget debate in Washington. Even then, though, it seems we've become immune that battle's noise. No, the biggest reason I see for stocks pulling back now is because traders got tired and/or bored with the rally during the first half of the month, and are letting the market ebb and flow naturally. That's the philosophical way of saying stocks are just bouncing around in between support and resistance lines, with no real conviction to snap out of the funk. For the S&P 500, the support line is (still) around 1679, and the resistance line is (still) around 1736. As long as the index is content to trade above its 20-day and 50-day moving averages but below its upper 20-day Bollinger band, there's really not a lot worth discussing. So, we won't. We'll just show you the chart and tell you to check back tomorrow.