Well, you probably don't need me to tell you the market made some critical progress today. While I still have my doubts and need to see a couple of things happen before I dig in too deeply, numbers and charts don't lie - the S&P 500 pushed through some serious resistance on Wednesday to reach another record high. Problem: The volume behind today's bullish effort was once again rather tepid. That's the short way of telling you I'm not going to let myself get too excited here. Let's let our charts do most of the talking, starting with the S&P 500. The milestone is right there in black and white... well, green and red and blue and black, in our case. The S&P 500 just barely eclipsed the ceiling at 1884 yesterday, but put some real distance between itself and that ceiling today. It is what it is. Now, before you get pumped up based on what you saw with the S&P 500, take a look at what the Dow Jones Industrial Average didn't do. It didn't move above a key ceiling around 16,580, though it did test it. Honestly, given the choice between an index testing a key line in the sand and failing to clear it, or not even testing such a ceiling to begin with, I'd prefer to not even test a resistance level in the first place. The only thing a failed test does is convince other traders there's a cap on the market, which in turn means those investors are less likely to be the buyers needed to actually get an index over the hump. Finally, here's the NASDAQ Composite, not that it's a particularly helpful chart at this point. Looks like it's just waffling here, waiting for traders to make a decision. So now what? Ya know, I'm going to stick with what I told you yesterday - while the market may be in an uptrend, it's hardly a proven uptrend. The market's true colors will only become clear when this rally is tested. In other words, I want to see how investors respond if and when the S&P 500 tumbles back under 1884. If traders don't care and use the dip as a buying opportunity, that'll clinch the April bullishness we suggested was possible yesterday. Until then, I'd tread very lightly, given what we're not seeing from the Dow or the NASDAQ Composite. Stickin' With SIMG For those of you who've been trading along with the SCN portfolio, you'll likely already know Silicon Image (SIMG) had a tough time today. At one point it was down more than 6%, and I'll be the first to say it got me thinking about pulling the plug on the trade and walking away with the 12% gain we had left. We're going to stick with SIMG though, based on the partial rebound we saw later in the session. In fact, there's a part of me that thinks what happened today could actually work to our advantage. First things first. The chart of Silicon Image below looks pretty nasty. The stock moved under an important floor at $6.60, and it did so on some pretty significant volume. It managed to push off its low for the day, but it only fought its way back to the $6.60 area. Now with a lower low following the lower high hit on Monday, we can't help but wonder if the weight of all those gains from early March is starting to bear down. So why are we sticking with it? I believe today's big pullback (on no news, by the way), may have cast off any dead weight that was holding the stock down. In other words, the overbought condition largely evaporated today. With all of that being said, if I had been paying closer attention to the weekly chart of Silicon Image, I might have had a better understanding of how and why this dip materialized. Three weeks ago, the daily chart of SIMG bumped into a key resistance line - the upper edge of a bullish trading range - and like clockwork, shares peeled back. I don't know that Silicon Image shares have to fall all the way back to the lower edge of the trading range to rekindle the rally, though I suppose anything's possible. We'd be out well before that happens, however. But, that's not what I'm expecting to happen here. I really believe SIMG is going to bounce back from today quite nicely. All the same, our mental stop loss of $6.50 was breached today, so we need to think defensively. If we see another lower low and/or it looks like we're going to close below $6.50, that'll be all the weakness I need to see to go ahead and close out this hypothetical trade. By the way, we got a couple of pieces of news from other companies in our portfolio. Frontier Communications (FTR) will be releasing last quarter's earnings and hosting a conference call next Tuesday - the 6th - after the market closes. And, Astec Industries (ASTE) has acquired Telestack. I don't expect Telestack to be a game-changer for Astec. As for Frontier's earnings, while I plan on listening to the call, I doubt we'll be in the trade come next Tuesday. We've got a profit to protect here, and I don't think we can justify the event-based risk when we don't have to. Solar Stocks, Up Close and Personal Does everybody remember how back on March 21st we made solar power one of our investment-worthy themes for the foreseeable future? We followed up with some additional details on March 27th, but you've hardly heard the last of what we need to say about the industry and its stocks - we're still fishing for a pick or two from the solar power group. Well, if you had any interest in solar then, there are two more items I think you'll want to see. One of them is John Udovich's examination of GT Advanced technologies (GTAT), and how it compares to a handful of other solar names. The other one is the special report the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity posted today. It's a detailed but concise look at the current status of the solar power market, in addition to an outlook. The same report also details the SCN EO's two current solar power stock picks. The most exciting part of the research report is that it offers revenue projections for the next three years, based on the specific technologies each company is developing. But you're not a member of the Elite Opportunity club? No sweat - the free two-week trial to the SCN EO service gives you full access to all the archived newsletters and reports. The report alone is worth using the offer here, especially since I still have no idea when I'm going to find my first solar panel pick. And, who knows? You may end up falling in love with the Elite Opportunity. Again though, the solar power outlook and stock analysis is accessible with your free 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/