Wow. That was odd. Despite yesterday's fairly severe beat-down, the bulls decided it was already time to go bargain hunting. You have to think a great deal of today's optimism was founded on hope that the Federal Reserve's meeting today and tomorrow is ultimately going to lead to something good for stocks. And, it may end up not being a bad bet. We're adopting more off a "wait and see" mindset on the matter of the Fed and Janet Yellen though. Whatever the case, it's all reflected in the charts of the major market indices, so we'll look at those clues today before making any kind of plan of action for tomorrow. First and foremost, the S&P 500 brushed and then pushed off of its lower 20-day Bollinger band on Tuesday. This in itself isn't shocking or inherently game-changing, but in this particular case it is kind of a big deal. As a result of today's bounce, the S&P 500 closed back above a fairly important floor at 1990, and even closed back above the 20-day moving average line at 1995. The VIX made a huge reversal bar too. Throw in the strong volume behind the move, and it's a good reason for the bears to rethink things. So now what? Let's not jump to any conclusions here. While today's action was clearly technical progress for the market, the Federal Reserve's upcoming report is the only reason I can find for the sudden strength. Thing is, these kinds of news-based, speculative moves are the last kind you want to follow, because they often flame out. And even if there really is something to today's pop, the S&P 500 still has a major ceiling at 2010 that could easily push stocks back into bearish mode. For what it's worth, while the S&P 500 pieced together more than a little technical progress on Tuesday, the NASDAQ Composite didn't give us quite as much meaningful hope. It did close back above the floor at 4545, but just barely. The composite didn't manage to cross above its 20-day moving average line, however, though it tested the short-term moving average. My guess is, today was more of a fluke than a hint. I'm not impressed, and I'm certainly not willing to swing back to a bullish stance. I really want to see the market's reaction to the Fed's verbiage rather than the market's prediction about what the Fed is going to have to say. I've got a nagging feeling the bears are going to take charge again tomorrow. Even if the knee-jerk response to the Fed's meeting minutes isn't a bearish one though, some serious ceilings are still right above where stocks are as of Tuesday. The path of least resistance remains to the downside. A break back under the recent key floors is going to be a bigger-picture sell signal for me. For the S&P 500, the floor is 1990 and/or 1980. For the NASDAQ, the make-or-break floor is 4510. It's gettin' real interesting, isn't it? I'm Kicking Myself, But You Don't Have To Ugh. Talk about coulda shoulda woulda. Remember last week when we named Manhattan Associates (MANH) as the "best of" among small cap technology stocks? We were interested in watching it as a potential addition to SCN portfolio, but we wanted to wait to see how the chart developed. Little did I know it would start to rally the very next day and never look back. MANH has gained 8.1% since its closing price the day we first mentioned it, and is still going strong. I hope you were willing to pull the trigger even though we didn't. Of course, the whole thing begs one question - why didn't we jump on it? The answer is something we've already mentioned to you in a recent newsletter.... being an end-of-day publication makes it nearly impossible to effectively "do" short-term swing trades. To do it right (and to do you justice), we have to be able to issue trading alerts on an intraday basis, and that's just something we're not set up to do. This isn't to say we've given up on owning Manhattan Associates in the SmallCap Network newsletter portfolio. It's just to underscore how important it is to act as soon as is necessary. See, we can't afford to risk issuing blind trading instructions because there's such a great amount of movement that happens overnight... while the stock can't be traded. If we ever do see the right end-of-day opportunity to get in without feeling like there's going to be wild volatility at the open the next day, we'll go ahead and make the suggestion an official one. Until that window opens though, we'll play things close to the vest. Here's the thing - the same approach that found Manhattan Associates also found a couple of recent short-term trades for the Elite Opportunity service, and since that newsletter is delivered on an intraday basis, those subscribers were able to act on those recommendations and are up big-time as a result. I probably shouldn't be divulging the EO's recent picks, but considering they were short-term swing trades I suppose it doesn't matter too much as this point; they may be closing them out pretty soon. One of them is a trade on Amazon.com (AMZN), which John Monroe suggested was a good short/bearish candidate back in Friday's edition of the Elite Opportunity newsletter. AMZN was trading at $331.02 then, but is at $328.58 now (and had been as low as $319.00 yesterday). That's a nice little scalp trade for just two days, and if you would have used the leverage of a put option on the trade you could have scored a very nice win. Also on the 12th John suggested going long on the ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil (UCO) as a way to play the imminent bounce in crude oil prices. The ETF was trading at $30.29 then, and now it's at $32.11, up 6%. That's a 6% gain in just two days, which is great, but in this particular case it looks like the reversal-rally has just begun. While both charts of these two swing trades look like you might have been able to get in and out at a decent price without needing to act on an intraday basis, trust me - trying to get into either trade the next day would have left you well behind the trend and chasing each ticker. If you really want to be a swing trader, you have to be willing and able to act at a moment's notice. And, that's what the new-and-improved Elite Opportunity service does ... pulls the trigger in real-time. Big scores on AMZN and UCO are just two of what I'm sure is going to be a long string of nice swing trades for EO subscribers. Like I said, I probably told you too much about what's going on over at the Elite Opportunity. I can't help it though. It's such a high-value service I want everyone to at least experience it for a while. Click here to take the free two-week test drive to see just how much of a boost it can provide to your portfolio. Or, cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/?vmpd_ckstr[click_track]=Newsletter&vmpd_ckstr_redirect=/pages/SCNEO/v1/ Oh, and just so you know, John made two more near-term trading suggestions in today's edition of the Elite Opportunity newsletter. It might not be too late to act on them if you want to start your sneak preview right now. Just play it by ear in the morning if you start your trial this evening. Looking Ahead to the Fed While we respect today's big rally, it's hardly a reason to pile back into stocks. Like we said, how the market reacts to whatever the Fed has to say tomorrow is going to be much more telling. My guess about tomorrow? Look for more tapering of the bond-buying effort, of course, but I'm not as convinced as others the Federal Reserve's chiefs are going to lift the "considerable time" language from the discussion of how much longer they expect to keep interest rates low. There's still not even a whiff of rampant inflation, and investors have protested anything that even remotely suggests the Fed is going to be anything but dovish. Janet Yellen knows this, and so far she's done a pretty good job of leading investors down the road she wants them to take. There'd be no benefit of needlessly taking those two words out of the Fed's outlook now when the fact of the matter is, the Federal Reserve doesn't truly know exactly when it's going to raise rates. Regardless, I'm mostly expecting a poor reaction to whatever the Fed says, if only because the Fed can't trump the calendar and the market's frothy valuation right now... no matter what it says about its plans. But hey - that's just one guy's guess. Let's regroup tomorrow and see what really went down. We'll also aim to have our look at gold, bonds, yields, and the U.S. dollar tomorrow after the Federal Reserve's meeting minutes are released. That analysis is going to be much more meaningful with the minutes factored in.