You know, while it's still too soon to say the market's absolutely poised for a pullback, I don't mind telling you there's been a suspicious lack of progress from the market of late, at a very suspicious level. One or two more small missteps from here could start a chain reaction nobody really wants to see headed into the holidays. Let's just start with a chart of the S&P 500 to show you what we mean. Once again the S&P 500 tried to clear the hurdle at 2075, and once again it failed. Had the bullish momentum not already slowed to a crawl in the two weeks leading up to the bump into this horizontal ceiling, we might be able to chalk it up to just being the calm before the next bullish storm. This isn't a break within a bigger bullish trend though. This is what a rollover looks like at the halfway point... not yet falling, but no longer rising. The cool part about the way this is all happening is how the market has made it pretty clear where the make-or-break levels are. For the S&P 500, it's 2052. That was Monday's close, Tuesday's open, and where the 20-day moving average line is now. [It was also something of a ceiling two and a half weeks ago, making it a slightly more meaningful floor now.] If the S&P 500 should break under that floor, I can see it kick-starting a trade-worthy breakdown. That's a big "if", however. A break above the ceiling at 2075 could be a bullish signal to take just as seriously. My guess is, however, we're going to see a break under 2052 followed by more significant lower lows. That's not a call for a new bear market, or even a major correction. I'm just thinking the market will want to find a way to set up the usual year-end bullishness, but to do so it's going to need to burn off some of this frothiness first. Now, there's another subtle reason I'm leaning a little bearishly here aside from the obvious slowing of the market's rally, and I have John Monroe over at the Elite Opportunity to thank for it. As he pointed out today in far greater and in far more meaningful detail than I'm going to for you here, the iShares 20-year Treasury Bond Fund (TLT) was up pretty firmly today, renewing an uptrend that's been trying to restart since late November. I think with today's bounce it's pretty clear bonds are back in a sustainable uptrend. I know on the daily chart it may look like TLT is already nearly bumping into a key technical resistance level. When we take a step back and look at the longer-term weekly chart of TLT, however, we can see bonds have been priced plenty higher than they are now. Point being, there's room for higher treasury prices, and with interest rates likely to remain low for at least several more months now that the Fed has turned off the bond-purchase spigot and is still a little befuddled about tepid inflation. If you're wondering why it matters, as John Monroe has pointed out to Elite Opportunity readers several times in recent weeks - including today - bond buyers are generally considered the smart money. And if the smart money is buying bonds, it's probably because they see weakness on the horizon for stocks. Thing is, the smart money is usually collectively right, whether or not they realize it. Just for the record, this isn't to say stock buyers could be considered "dumb money". There was probably a point where that was basically true, but every market has smart players in it now. I think it would be more accurate to say bond traders are more often than not the smarter money. Regardless of the semantics though, with bonds making gains and gold also hinting at more upside, something's got to give soon and I fear it'll be stocks. All the same, until the S&P 500 breaks under 2052, we'll be glad to remain on the fence. For what it's worth, the equivalent line in the sand for the NASDAQ is 4724. The last bastion of support for the Russell 2000 is 1154. With all of this being said, while I'm only (mostly) telling the pessimistic side of the story, this isn't to say the market doesn't have a path it can take to higher highs. This path will admittedly be trickier to navigate than the path to lower lows, but it's still possible. John Monroe explained how that could pan out (and more important, where the next upside target is) to Elite Opportunity members today. Let's just say his upside case makes a lot of sense - as does his target - if for some reason the market fails to break under the support levels we just talked about. I don't have time or room to get into the nitty-gritty of this bullish path from here, but if you want some market analysis that really puts things in their proper trading perspective, this is what Monroe does for readers every single day. His technique is top-notch too, utilizing tools and an approach few others even know about. That's why it works so well. You can't do what everybody else is doing and expect to do well in the market. If you'd like to do something different with your stock picking - something that actually works - John's your guy and the Elite Opportunity is your service. Here's the whole deal, or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/pages/SCNEO/v1/ From the Site We got a lot of great stuff posted at the site today and yesterday. I can't point you to all of it, but I will direct you to my favorite three commentaries I see as "must reads". In no certain order... American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) posted last quarter's earnings after the close today - as John Udovich previewed here - just one day after Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) shared its prior quarter's numbers. The market wasn't particularly pleased with either report. What's going wrong for so many of these formerly great fashion names? Bryan Murphy has a good grip on at least one of the reasons the high-end clothing industry is disintegrating. John also did some digging on small cap networking stock Ubiquiti Networks (UBNT). The share price has been less than impressive of late, but John's research suggests there may be some real long-term worthiness with UBNT despite the pessimism that's been plaguing the stock recently. Finally, James Brumley dissected insurance software company Ebix (EBIX) today, and liked what he found... an undervalued activist-investor project underway, with a rising stock to show for the effort. The story is a slightly complicated one, but James does a great job of putting all the relevant facts together into a cogent bullish case. That's all for today, folks!