Howdy folks. How was your Wednesday? Things were clearly a little lethargic for the market. Much of the lull can be chalked up to traders not being quite sure what's in store for stocks in the near-term, but a big chunk of Wednesday's stand-still is also attributable to the approaching holiday. Yes, the market's closed on Friday in observance of Independence Day, and people are stretching the three-day weekend into a four-day and even a five-day weekend, beginning today. On that note, we'll not be publishing anything on Friday, since there won't be much of anything to talk about. Also note Thursday's edition will be published a little earlier than usual, as the market closes at 1:00 pm EST that day. With the market being closed on Friday, there are a few announcements being displaced. Namely, the Department of Labor will be unveiling June's unemployment data on Thursday rather than the usual first Friday of the month. I'm sure you already heard the good news on this front - payroll-processing company ADP reported this morning that 281,000 new jobs were created last month. It was the biggest payroll growth figure we've seen from ADP in about a year and a half, and though the DOL's monthly payroll growth figure doesn't always jive with ADP's, the two usually move in tandem. This bodes well for tomorrow morning's report, which may just jolt this lethargic market back into action. For what it's worth, this is where the employment data trends stand. The pros currently believe the nation's unemployment rate will hold steady at 6.3% on the heels of 230,000 new jobs created last month. Given how strong the ADP number was today though, I can't help but wonder if we're on the verge of a pleasant surprise on Thursday. None of this, however, was what I really wanted to discuss with you today. Let's Talk Commodity Metals One of the things I always keep my eyes peeled for is data on gold's true supply and demand dynamic. I've never felt gold was priced on much more other than hope and fear regarding its future, but without data to support my thesis, my theory is nothing more than that... a theory. This is why I usually dissect the daylights out of the World Gold Council's quarterly report - it gives us raw consumption numbers, and even pinpoints who's doing the consuming. Problem: The quarterly report from the WGC doesn't come out until a month and a half after the end of the quarter, which is pretty late for those of us who need to move faster. Well guys and gals, I ran across a data source today that I'm ashamed I didn't find sooner. It tells us a great deal about the supply and demand of gold, in a monthly timeframe. Better still, it tells us this data right after the month in question comes to a close. The data set is Bullion Vault's Gold Investor Index, which simply measures the number of buyers and the number of sellers of the gold that Bullion Vault houses for investors who don't want to physically hold gold themselves. The tally is taken at the end of every month, and as of June, the Gold Investor Index is at a multi-year low of 51.2. This means the number of sellers versus the number of buyers [position size isn't considered] is as high as it's been in a long, long time. I did a little background work on the data, looking for a correlation between the price of gold and the Gold Investor Index. Sure enough, I found it. That's why from now on I'm going to track the Gold Investor Index along with consumption trends (from the World Gold Council) and the monthly inflation rate. I figure this is the long-term data that has the biggest impact on gold's price. It's all on the chart below. What I think is so interesting - although not entirely surprising - about the latest batch of data is how even though gold prices surged in mid-June, it's not like a ton of people were pouring in. The rise in demand was concentrated to just a few really big players. While there's a bullish element to that concentrated demand, overall I think we can still conclude the demand undertow remains fairly feeble. That's the way I'm seeing the data anyway. I've yet to feel gold could hang onto its recent surge, and my doubts are even stronger after looking at the Bullion Vault data today. Whatever the case, I look forward to updating this chart for you guys in the future. The next update will be in mid-July, when we get June's inflation rate. Speaking of metals, while I'm not a big fan of the world's third-most precious metal here (rhodium and platinum still cost more than gold on a per-ounce basis), I'm a huge fan of one of the world's cheapest metals. You may recall we made a bullish call on copper back on June 18th. We liked aluminum too, but copper was in a sweet spot. Well, we're more than satisfied with the pick. Copper prices have advanced from about $3.10 per pound then to $3.25 now. No, it's not a giant move by stock standards, but for commodities, it's huge. More important to us, there's a ton of room for copper to keep recovering from a major setback that began in 2012. There's plenty of reason to expect copper to keep rising too, as the Wall Street Journal explained here, and as Bloomberg explained here. By the way, without many copper miners out there - and even fewer "pure" copper plays - many of you have been asking how to tap into the copper trend. While I'm usually not a fan of exchange-traded funds, this is a case where they make more sense than tracking down an obscure miner or supplier. The best-suited ETFs are probably going to be the Global X Copper Miners ETF (COPX), the iPath Dow Jones UBS Copper Total Return Sub-Index ETN (JJC), and the First Trust ISE Global Copper Index Fund (CU). Anyway, the headline of today's edition asked how copper could be more valuable than gold. The answer to the question is, a rising commodity is an opportunity, and a falling commodity is a liability. The per-pound price is largely irrelevant. The key is being on the right side of the trend. Now, let's take a quick look at today's market action. Don't worry - there wasn't much action today, so there won't be many words. Stocks Still Pushing Their Luck Like we mentioned to you already, today's (in)action largely tells us traders aren't terribly confident there's room for more upside. We have to chalk up at least part of today's stagnation to the upcoming holiday weekend though. Most important, nothing's really changed since yesterday. The S&P 500 is still contending with a natural ceiling around 1975, the Dow's pausing as it approaches 17,000, and the Russell 2000 is still dancing with 1213. And now, the NASDAQ seems to be struggling at 4471, where it peaked yesterday. While all of those resistance levels are going to be scrutinized over the course of the next few days, they're not my biggest concern at this time. My biggest concern is how low the VIX and the VXN have gotten over the course of the past few days. Crash course: The VIX is the S&P 500's so-called "fear gauge", while the VXN is the NASDAQ's fear gauge. If either gets too low, it suggests a dangerous degree of complacency, which is often a harbinger of a correction. (There's more to it than that, but this Q&D explanation will do in a pinch.) With all of this in mind, take a look at the S&P 500 with its VIX. The VIX has been lower, but it's not been much lower. Now take a look at the NASDAQ and its VXN. The VXN's close today was not only beneath a key floor at 12.10, but it was the lowest close we've seen in years. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe I keep banging the bearish drum just to subconsciously remain in the minority. But, I simply can't get past the notion that something's wrong with this rally. In any case, we just wanted to float the idea to you. Though we're not going to come to any major conclusions today, we want to keep putting all the relevant pieces on the board. The VIX and the VXN are a couple more of those pieces.