Welcome to the weekend, fellow traders. While it may have been a fairly uneventful end to a mostly-uneventful week, there's still plenty to talk about, like the fact that the riskier NASDAQ and Russell 2000 indices fared far better on Friday than the Dow or the S&P 500 did. So what? It's a sign of a "risk on" mentality for investors, which is one of the underpinnings of a typical bull trend. There's still very little that's certain with the market right now, but history has shown it's wiser to respond to what the market is doing rather than what we think it should be doing. Advertisement Analyze Any Stock For Free - Instant Report Use this complimentary tool to learn the short, intermediate, and long term trends of any stock, determine market strength, and more. See the latest Trade Triangle entry and exit signals in this quick technical analysis report. Start Your Trend Analysis Now. Advertisement We'll take a look at the market's reality in a moment. The first thing we want to do is update you on a couple cans of worms we've opened recently. Commodities and Confidence On Wednesday we showed you how consumer confidence, as measured by the Conference Board, was at a multi-year high. Not that we needed it, but June's final reading for the Michigan Sentiment Index score underscores just how good the typical consumer is feeling now. The third and final reading of the Michigan Sentiment score for this month rolled in at 82.5... better than the expected 81.7, and higher than the second score of 81.2. It's not a multi-year high reading, but it's a multi-month high, and it's clear optimism continues to grow. As we mentioned to you on Wednesday, better confidence won't stave off any short-term pullback from the market. The correlation between confidence and the long-term market trend, however, is pretty high. Also, last week (the 18th, to be specific) we explained our bullish outlook on copper and aluminum. Although we liked both for the foreseeable future, we preferred copper over aluminum if there was only room for one in your portfolio. So how have things progressed in the meantime? Pretty well. Aluminum has advanced a couple cents per pound, and is knocking on the door of a major break above $0.85. Copper has been even better. It's up from about $3.05 per pound then to $3.15 now, and seems to have picked up steam. Best of all, there's still plenty of room to keep running. Neither copper nor aluminum are anywhere near their cyclical highs. We just wanted to keep you up to date on both trend, since some of you may be playing them with stocks. Speaking of stock picks, there's been no recent news from or about any of the SCN newsletter portfolio picks since our last update. We're still pleased with our overall progress, however. In any environment where you're sitting on not one but two fairly young double-digit winners, you've got nothing to complain about. This is where things stands as of Friday's close. Yes, we'll be running new scans this weekend in search of new trading ideas. We'll talk about the best of the best of those possibilities when we get a chance next week. The Water's Getting Muddier Well, we have to give credit where it's due. Though stocks didn't start the day on the best foot, they certainly finished Friday on a high note... and at the highs for the day. While we still don't want to say things are bullish enough to justify piling into new long positions, at least the bulls bought themselves a little more time. Like we discussed on Thursday though, at least some of this has to be quarter-ending window-dressing and money managers positioning themselves to end the calendar quarter looking good. The S&P 500's close at 1690.97 wasn't a record-breaker, but it is pretty clear the bulls were reaching higher as the day and the week come to a close. As for the NASDAQ Composite, it didn't hit a record high today either, but its close at 4397.93 was a multi-year record high close. Now, that in itself is bullish, but bolstering the bullish argument is how the NASDAQ and the Russell 2000 closed up 0.43% and 0.74%, respectively, while the S&P 500 and the Dow only closed higher by 0.19% and 0.03%, respectively. If traders were fearful and unsure, they'd be gravitating to the safer havens of blue chips and large caps. Instead, investors want to take on risk. But one day could be a fluke? I agree, but it wasn't just today we saw outsized gains from the riskier indices. Going all the way back to the June 12th low the Russell and the NASDAQ have been leading the way. I'll be the first to acknowledge this all throws a wrench in my pullback theory, although I should add my pullback theory is largely predicated on a valuation problem and can't pinpoint the exact time we'll make the bearish pivot. Despite today's clues, I just can't advocate getting into a bunch of new long positions today. There's something not right about this rally, and even if I'm wrong about the direction, there's not much room for more upside. And, if I'm, right, any pullback is apt to take a big toll... more than you'd just want to ride out. The VIX and VXN are at or near multi-month and multi-year lows, indicating more complacency than I'd care to tangle with once it all starts to unravel. Bottom line: Between the calendar and the situation, I'm content to simply table the issue until next week when we're apt to get clearer answers without all the quarter-end effects. By the way, if you want to bypass any ambiguity and get a straight-up market call, the Elite Opportunity made not one, not two, but three firm calls in today's newsletter, with a fourth one in the hopper. The categories John Monroe opined on were biotech, the broad market, retail, and commodities. No, we're not going to tell you which he gave a thumbs up or thumbs down to, or the one he's on hold with. But, he tells it like it is with these four arenas. If you want to get more out of the market, this is the kind of actionable advice you need. Look, nobody enjoys talking market philosophy more than I do. When it comes right down to it though, the whole point of all of this is to make more money. And to do that, you have to buy low and sell high. There's enough market-based theory and fluff out there in the media to last you a lifetime. If you want clear market calls and picks though, that's where the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity stands out. John Monroe just made three clear stands, and is close to making a fourth one if certain things pan out. In a world overrun by chatter, the SCN EO is like a breath of fresh air for investors wanting more. It's the weekend... the perfect chance to devote some time to exploring the Elite Opportunity's archives to see what it's all about by using your free two-week trial. Here's how to get it, or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/?vmpd_ckstr[click_track]=Newsletter&vmpd_ckstr_redirect=/pages/SCNEO/v1/