Welcome to the weekend, fellow traders, and what an amazingly slow week it was. Oh sure, the market took something of a hit, but news-wise things were quiet, and it's not like this week's slump was a game-changer. That's why today's edition is going to be a little shorter than usual. Still, it's nothing you'd want to miss. Advertisement Will this event trigger the next Great Depression? The Florida-based economist who predicted nearly every major financial event of the last thirty years now warns that we are sitting on the precipice of the greatest financial crisis in history. To see his detailed analysis, click here. Advertisement While I'd score it low on the relevance scale, since we keep tabs on most of the major economic data we do want to go ahead and give you a couple of the key economic numbers posted today.... the producer price inflation rate for May, and June's first (of three) estimate of the Michigan Sentiment Index score. As we pretty much expected, April's inflation surge does indeed look like nothing more than a temporary blip. For May, producers only saw a 2.0% year-over-year increase in costs (versus 2.1% for April), and on a month-to-month basis their input prices actually fell. Prices fell 0.2% overall, and fell 0.1% on a core basis. The real value of the Producer Price Inflation data is mostly as an omen of what to expect next week when we get last month's Consumer Inflation Index data. You may recall that it too popped pretty firmly last month, reaching an annualized pace of 1.95% - the highest reading since late-2012. If it's in a new uptrend though, it could be a problem. Well, to the extent producer inflation rates portend consumer inflation rates, it seems as if things are going to remain tame on this front. We won't know for sure until Tuesday, but I'm not sweating it. As for the Michigan Sentiment Index, considering its going to be revised two more times before we log the final/official number, I'm not even really sure why I'm bothering talking with you about it other than to prep us for what's to come later. Whatever the case, sentiment has slipped from May's final score of 81.9 to 81.2. No biggie. It's the lower data line on the chart below; the red one in the middle is the Conference Board's consumer confidence score. I will tell you the coming week is going to have some hard-hitting stuff in the way of economic data. Aside from Tuesday's consumer inflation data, look for last month's industrial production and capacity utilization figures on Monday, and look for housing starts and building permits on Tuesday. You might recall how productivity and capacity utilization both slumped last month, which is forgivable. If we see a second month of decline, however, that could be a problem. As for starts and permits though, both actually perked up last month, hinting at a recovery for the real estate market. Almost needless to say, next week is going to make or break a few trends. In light of the way the market's been riding the fence of late, a little of the right or wrong data could finally get things moving. You Asked, We Answered I know we mention this to you from time to time, but we don't get to say it often enough - if you have a question, comment, criticism, or any other kind of feedback or response to something you read here in the newsletter, send us an e-mail and tell us what it is. We really do read every single thing you guys send our way, and respond to everything. And, where it's merited, we'll respond publicly. We got two such pieces of feedback this week, one in response to something we said in Tuesday's newsletter, and the other in response to something we mentioned on Wednesday. Beginning with Tuesday's chat, one of our readers asked if it was a misprint when we said "based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, overall U.S. corporate profits - in total - were actually down nearly 10% in Q1." Nope, it wasn't a misprint. For those of you who've been following the broad market's earnings trend closely, you'll know while Q1's bottom line growth for the S&P 500 may not have been heroic, it was growth nonetheless. If the S&P 500 pumped up its earnings, how did all of corporate America actually see earnings decline? The answer is, there's more to the nation's productivity than the companies that make up the S&P 500. All the other off-the-radar companies - which collectively make up a decent-sized chunk of the economy - hit a pretty big headwind last quarter on the earnings front. Maybe it was just all the bad weather, or maybe not. Whatever the case, here's the rest of that story. Look for the income and profit information near the bottom of the report, rather than all the GDP news up at the top. The second question came in response to Wednesday's discussion of how the Investors' Intelligence poll became too bullish for our own good. I'd be the first to acknowledge the chart we gave you wasn't ideal, and we didn't give you much data to work with. In the meantime I came across this story on Yahoo Finance that offers much more context as well as a chart that's easier to understand and correlate to the stock market. Again, if there's ever anything you have a question about or think we need to explain better, just shoot us an e-mail and we'll be glad to take a look. Out of the Woods You know what? While this is normally where we'd dissect the market, I'm not going to bother today. You know as well as I do that stocks are just flopping around in no-man's land here, and to make a call is little more than a coin toss. We're still waiting for something catalytic - in either direction - and until we get it there's not enough market movement to fool with. Again though, I still have this nagging feeling we're close to a surprising (and surprisingly large) move. Please stay tuned, as I don't want you to not see it coming, and I'm pretty sure the mainstream media won't actually start talking about that move until it's well underway. Instead, let's wrap up the week with a quick look at one of our open trades... Hurco (HURC). You may recall we were a little nervous about the way Hurco left behind a big gap on Friday of last week. Gaps tend to get filled in, and if HURC was going to slide lower to close the gap, there's always a chance it could keep falling. Good news - we closed the gap on Wednesday, and rekindled the overall uptrend. This one is slowly becoming one of our favorite trades. This is where the portfolio stands as of right now. We didn't add any new positions this week (obviously), but we expect to add one next week... maybe two. It depends on what the market looks like at the time. By the way, congratulations are in order to current Elite Opportunity members who saw their Intel (INTC) trade jump nearly 7% on Friday thanks to an upgrade. The SCN EO Intel position is now up about 13%. Normally I don't like to divulge someone else's proprietary trades, but at this point I doubt any Elite Opportunity subscribers would care since they're already well up (and in less than a month). The crazy thing is, this isn't the first time I've seen something like this with the EO. John Monroe has this knack for finding explosive stocks before they explode. If you could use a few more explosive trades in your portfolio, my advice is this - start your free two-week trial to the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity service this weekend and see how it can supercharge your trading. 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