I know it was a trade glitch yesterday and Q1's weaker-than-expected GDP that got the blame for the market's lazy pullback today. Honestly though, I don't think either reason is the actual culprit. I suspect investors are just still not convinced the market's ready to keep rallying, and are holding back each time the indices start to toy with new highs. We'll get to that in a second. First I want to reiterate something I suggested back on April 9th. Only this time, there's a billionaire that agrees with me, and he's putting his money where his mouth is. If It's Good Enough for Soros... I'm sure you remember Ron Johnson was fired as J.C. Penney's (JCP) CEO earlier in the month, just a few hours after hedge fund manager Bill Ackman characterized Johnson's impact and results as 'disastrous'. (Ouch!) I detailed that beginning of the end back on the 8th, just a few minutes before Ackman officially gave Johnson the boot. The market went to work punishing the stock immediately out of the gate the next day - the 9th - knowing that adding such disruption into the mix of an already-struggling company would only make matters worse. Shares fell from $15.87 to a close of $13.93 that day. Bad news? Yes it was. In fact, that was the point where things couldn't possibly get any worse for J.C. Penney's.... the company and the stock. That's why we suggested using the big plunge as an entry point into a JCP position. It's a totally-contrarian opinion, which is the point - when the market is most sure things are a certain way, they're most likely the exact opposite. In support of the theory is the fact that JCP shares have rallied 17% since the day we said the stock was a buy. You're welcome. Anyway, care to guess who loves J.C. Penney enough to take on a 7.9% stake in the company? Another hedge fund manager - George Soros. Just for the record, I'm not a fan of Soros as a person. But, I am a fan of his stock picks. He's one of the few hedge funders with reliable market-beating returns, and he's also a fellow contrarian; he sees value when most others are too terrified to think rationally. I'm not saying you have to own JCP just because George Soros likes it any more than I would say you had to buy it because we liked it earlier in the month. But, the stock's gaining when "it shouldn't be", and Soros is a market veteran. I'll take the hint at face value and reiterate my bullishness. Yawn You know, we may as well have skipped Friday's trading session. The S&P 500 ended up closing about 0.2% lower, and even then only traded in a narrow range. Volume was pretty weak too. It was anemic, even by Friday standards. So now what? This is going to be tough to digest for you action-seekers [and we're in the same group], but the right move here is to do nothing. It's become pretty clear that traders don't actually have the cojones to push the market - and I'm mostly talking about the S&P 500 here - to new highs. They tinkered with the idea a couple of weeks ago, and were close to trying again on Thursday. But, there's just no conviction. That work in reverse too though. If the bears were serious about knocking the market off of its perch, we should have seen some stronger evidence of it by now. The irony is, while a stalled rally would normally be bad for the bulls and good for the bears, I can't help but wonder if the pause here is actually giving the bulls a chance to rebuild their confidence. I don't think that's the case, but as an objective market observer, I can't deny how all the major indices are holding above all their key moving averages while the upper Bollinger bands (which generally act as technical ceilings) start to edge higher again. Regardless of the way stocks are acting in the near-term, I can't help but feel like it's the weekly chart that's so much more telling. The same bullish trend lines that got us here from the November low are still intact, and I have to expect them to remain intact until I have a clear reason not to... in the form of a move under that lower line. That line's going to be at 1552 next week, which - and this doesn't surprise me - is pretty much in line with the weekly opens and/or closes for the past four weeks. Check back on Monday. Next Week It's Friday, folks - time to wrap up one week and start making a roadmap for the next. Here (as always) are the major market and economic items you'll want to watch for, beginning with any FDA decisions. It's going to be a fairly busy week on this front, but all the news is going to be compacted to two days. Raptor Pharmaceutical (RPTP) and Titan Pharmaceuticals (TTNP) have PDUFA announcements on Tuesday, while AVEO Pharmaceuticals (AVEO), Delcath Systems (DCTH), and Allergan (AGN) have dates with their appropriate advisory panels on Thursday. I'd love to handicap some of these drugs for you, but I just don't have the time or space to do so this week. It won't be hard to find information on any of them though, so if you're looking for some coin-toss kind of action, there ya go. In terms of economics, there's an almost-maddening number of announcements in the lineup. Not all of it is important, but enough of it is important that we need to be on our toes all week long. The focal point will be jobs - next week is the week we get our monthly dose of employment reality, kicking off with Wednesday's ADP Employment Change number, and ending with Friday's grand finale of April's unemployment rate. Remember, March's numbers were very disappointing. Not that strong payroll growth for April would necessarily spur a rally, but another poor showing could absolutely up-end the market. Last but not least, we're still digesting earnings news. Once again there are too many announcements for the coming week to insert that calendar here. Just click on this link to go to the full-screen shot. Again, don't even try to follow them all; there are just too many to keep track of. Pick the ones you're most interested in and put those on your calendar. Speaking of earnings.... Normally we'd update the earnings scoreboard in the Friday edition of the newsletter, but you've probably noticed by now we haven't done it. We're not dodging the duty - Standard & Poor's just hasn't updated the numbers yet. We expect them to update the S&P 500's earnings results by Monday, so we'll have the latest earnings reality check for you then. In the meantime, have a GREAT weekend, and be sure to take a look at the special offer from the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity. I showed you a little bit about how these guys think and trade yesterday, but that was only a glimpse. Today's SCN EO newsletter added a couple of new trades that are well-orchestrated hedges, and very appropriate for what's going on in the market right now. If you want to know what those trades are, take the free two-week test drive. Here's the deal. 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/