Let me get this straight... the only thing the would-be bulls needed to hear from the Fed was that it was going to hold off on rate hikes until it absolutely had to impose them? Well heck. I could have told you several weeks ago that was the way things were going to be this year. In fact, I think I did say that a few weeks ago. Whatever the case, traders liked what they thought Janet Yellen said today (more on that in a moment), and sent stocks up and into some key resistance levels. The market didn't clear all of its technical ceilings, but it took a pretty decent bite out of them. There's just a little bit more distance to travel before the indices officially enter breakout territory. The question is, do we trust today's move as a bullish omen? It's been a few months now, but last July I made the point that the market's response to ambiguous news -- and Yellen's comments today were plenty ambiguous -- was a lot like a Rorschach (ink blot) test psychologists use to figure out what's really going on inside people's heads. In today's case the test simply indicated that traders are looking for a reason to be bullish... IF some of the last remaining resistance lines are finally broken. That's a big "if" though. I can't help but wonder if the bears are subconsciously setting the bulls up for a big, and surprising, pullback by making it look like a breakout is in the cards. Let's just start there today, beginning with a look at the S&P 500's daily chart. As you can see, the index hurled itself into that intermediate-term resistance line (dashed) but didn't really clear it. It's also yet to push past a bigger ceiling at 2078, where it peaked a couple of times in December. That's also near where the upper Bollinger band is. Until the last of those technical ceilings is in the rear-view mirror, I'll have my doubts despite the way the bulls went at it today. You can also see on the chart of the S&P 500 just how close the VIX is to a major floor. If the VIX can't move any lower, odds are good the market can't move any higher. Let's also look at the NASDAQ Composite's chart, although it doesn't look terribly different. It managed to attack its upper Bollinger band today, and approach its 200-day moving average line (green). Until it gets beyond the 200-day line though, my bullishness is tempered by a ton of caution. The VXN, like the VIX, is also struggling to move under a major support line. Here's the catch... I can see the market moving just far enough above the aforementioned technical ceilings to make everyone think a breakout is underway, only to pull the rug out from underneath those buyers once they start to pile back in en masse. Yes, we've seen it before, and yes, the market has that kind of personality. There's a decent counter-argument, mind you. That counter-argument is the fact that the S&P 500 averages a 1.3% gain in April. It's usually one of the best months of the year, dishing out gains about 2/3 of the time. In that light, how, where, and for how long the indices manage to push through this resistance will tell us a lot about how seriously we need to take any breakout hints. If it's the real thing, it will likely unfurl at a slow and steady pace. If it's just a fakeout move, it will likely look like a heroic high-volume surge that ends up fizzling shortly thereafter. Counterintuitive? You bet. Thing is, that's not even the half of it. There's a whole lotta psychology going on right now. I'll go ahead and warn you now I'm not going to do it justice, but check out this snippet from today's Elite Opportunity newsletter: "As a matter of fact, regardless of what these markets decide to do over the next several days, or even weeks for that matter, we're still convinced the markets will need to go much lower before we can justify all that much higher levels ahead. We just don't see where the economic catalyst can come from at this point. And, with what appears to be more of an increasing concern on the geo-political front, it's definitely enough for bullish traders to be paying close enough attention out of the corner of their eyes. The bottom line at this point is the only way these markets go higher is if the short trade becomes an overly crowded trade. In other words, if too many traders start questioning the market's ability to move higher over the next few days, and more importantly start piling in to the bearish leveraged ETF's, these markets could simply melt their way up. Go figure." Amazingly enough, I know exactly what John Monroe's saying here. I'm sure at least some of you know what he means as well, seeing stocks do strange things during your time as a trader. If you're not quite seeing the (admittedly backwards-sounding) logic I only have time to explain it like this - the current market situation is one where the superficial clues don't mean much, because what's happening on the surface isn't the same thing that's happening under the surface. Don't ask me how John knows it. It would take too long to explain it, and I'm not even sure I could explain it if you asked me too. It's just one of those things that takes a lot of experience to understand. I suppose that's the real value to an EO subscription - years of experience with how the market works in the real world, and how to work the market right back. It's the kind of stuff you can't learn from a book... stuff that's allowed Elite Opportunity members to get more than their fair share out of the market. Here's how you can tap into that experience, or just cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/pages/SCNEO/v1/ By the way, there was one earnings preview posted at the website today many of you may want to check out. Peter Graham gave us a heads-up on Micron Technology (MU), which reports last quarter's numbers after the close on Wednesday.