Good afternoon everyone, or good morning for those of you who don't get to read the evening newsletter until the day after it's published. Regardless of when you check it out, welcome back from the weekend, and welcome to the new trading week. We've got a pretty close look at the market for you today... not that there's a whole lot worth talking about yet. Stocks were up, but they ended the day well off their highs and ended the day right on the fence. We're still trapped, though it's still worth a look just to get a feel for how we're trapped, and where we might break free. We'll take a look at that in a moment. First, may I rant just a bit? I'll concede this doesn't have a lot to directly do with stock-picking. On the other hand, indirectly it could have an impact on a whole lot of industries, and a whole lot of specific companies. I'm talking about the demise of interest in the NFL. Don't get me wrong. It's still huge. The Super Bowl is still the world's most-watched single sporting event except for years World Cup Soccer championships are played. Total viewing time on the Olympics is greater, but no single Olympic event draws more eyeballs than the NFL's Super Bowl. Point being, it's big. It's not what it used to be though. This year, television ratings for regular season games are falling... more than a little. It could just be an ill-timed fluke, but I don't think that's what it is. Yes, Payton Manning is gone, Tom Brady was out, and a few other star players have retired. In fact, it's unlikely anyone could name more than ten starting quarterbacks for this year's teams. That lack of star power has to hurt a little. The Colin Kaepernick thing isn't helping either. Gotta be honest though - the way I see it, that's not what's holding fans and viewers back; the league has thrived with a lesser product than it has now. My guess is, in simplest terms, people are just finding too many other things to distract them. You know, it wasn't that long ago when you couldn't take the internet with you wherever you went. It wasn't that long ago tablets didn't exist. It wasn't much longer ago than that we didn't have access to 60 or so primary television channels and a couple hundred other ancillary channels. It wasn't that long ago music wasn't digitized. Back then, when entertainment and diversion weren't ridiculously easy to come by, watching a football game was easy to do - there weren't a massive number of alternatives. Now, a variety of other ways to spend time and money are always at your fingertips (literally and metaphorically). Even without a ton of other things to do though, a long look back at the history of professional sports reveals their popularity is cyclical. In many regards leagues go through the same boom/bust cycle the market does. That is, they start out slow on a "rebuilding" year, and eventually pick up so much speed the industry thinks the money will never stop flowing. It does, of course - unbridled greed has been the ruin of many a men, and many economies. The NFL doesn't pace itself any better than any other business. And let's face it -- the last couple of years it's been easy to grow tired of all-things-NFL related. Giving credit where it's due, Pacific Crest may have said it best early this year when it opined that the NFL had "peaked" as a business venture. As much as fans may love the game, the one thing they love even more is finding something new. That said, Forbes also asked the question back in 2013, foreseeing this day would come. The issue then was mostly about the dangers of the sport, but the given dangers are more of a symptom than the ill itself. Perhaps most concerning of all is that millennials in particular aren't all that into professional football.... at least not the way their parents were. It's a problem, because sooner or later those millennials will reach their high-earnings years and will be key decision-makers. I simply think the NFL's best days for a while are behind it, partially because of football-fandom fatigue, and partially because there are more entertainment choices than ever before. It remains to be seen to what extent this will impact television networks and the NFL's sponsors, but it's certainly not going to be good. Even if its ratings only fall a little more, the lack of unquantifiable euphoria or mystique for professional football could take a surprisingly big bite out of the revenue the NFL is capable of driving. You've been duly notified. In any case, although today's action was bullish on a close-to-close basis, it was anything but impressive. Take a look. The S&P 500 jumped above a big line in the same at 2147, and also popped above the 20-day and 100-day moving average lines in the process. Between the gap and lack of volume though, the bears are already sniffing around. It's a situation we've seen several times since July. That is, the market lurches, but doesn't follow through. We've said it before but we'll say it again... the market is caught between a rock and a hard place. Until the S&P 500 can make its way above the 50-day line (and really, above the upper Bollinger band currently at 2174) then we can't get bullish. Likewise, until the floor at 2120 breaks, there's no reason to assume the worst. It's all just noise in the meantime. I like the way John Monroe of the Elite Opportunity Pro newsletter assessed things today, saying: "Although both the S&P 500 and the DOW are also up strongly on the day, neither of them have yet to break their recent pattern of lower highs and lower lows as evidenced by the daily chart of the S&P 500 below. As you can see here, the index has had a habit of having days like this, only to give it back and them some when it's all said and done.... ... I do find it interesting the markets are up following Goldman Sachs cut of S&P 500 forward earnings through 2018. Just goes to show you how resilient these markets can be and have been for quite some time. Nothing can replace the strength of long-term momentum in the markets. And, it's that underlying long-term strength that should continue to be considered until proven otherwise. I suspect we'll know by no later than tomorrow if today's sharp rally to the upside is a prelude for things to come, or if it's simply a head fake move trapping shorts one last time before they start to rollover, which is why we continue to exercise a trading mentality of caution for the time being..." Well, John had more to say, but you get the idea -- he agrees we can't trust any apparent bullishness just yet. On the other hand, though he didn't explicitly say so today, the market right now is a day-by-day affair. Once it finally makes the turn and breaks out or breaks down, with more than three months of stagnation to unwind, that move could unfurl in a hurry. Even being one day late to the party could mean trouble for your portfolio. That's one of the key differences you need to know about between the EO Pro and the newsletter you're reading now. John's dispensing predictive advice in real-time. This end-of-day newsletter usually just talks about what happened after the fact, and after the close. His advice is far more potent than what I can give you here. This is how to get John's intraday analysis and trading ideas.