Good Thursday to you. Yes, the market was up today, but only a little, with the indices giving back most of their intraday gains by the time the closing bell rang. To tell you the truth, the intraday pullback is more alarming than a small gain would have been on its own. By making a pretty nice intraday gain and then giving most of it up again, the bulls just proved to the bears they're not super-convicted here. Had we not made such a high and then given it up, at least the would-be bulls could have chalked it up to a lethargic day. Now we know the buyers aren't committed, which makes it tougher to get other buyers to commit in the foreseeable future. Take a close look at our chart of the S&P 500 below to see what I mean. The S&P 500 rallied to as high as 2067.65, slightly eclipsing the 200-day moving average line (green), completely hurdling the 50-day average (purple), and threatening the 20-day average line (blue). By the time the closing bell rang though, the S&P 500 was back below all of them, closing at only 2052.23. The bulls just couldn't hang on to their gain (which lacked volume from the get-go... more on that in a second). Equally concerning is the way the VIX is acting. It looks like it's still testing the waters of higher highs, which has bearish implications for stocks. All the same, the 2031 level increasingly looks like it's going to be THE make-or-break line. The daily chart of the NASDAQ Composite looks about the same as the S&P 500's, so there's no need to show you that one today. The weekly chart of the NASDAQ does offer a little more color though, so I do want to take a look at it. As we talked about in yesterday's newsletter, the NASDAQ is ready to test a huge support level at 4960. That's still evident on the weekly timeframe, as it's right at the midpoint of 100-day and 200-day moving average lines on our chart below. What we can see with the weekly chart is how there's another support line (red, dashed) also coming back into play around that level. This is a support line extending back into late-2012. It's also a support level John Monroe over at the Elite Opportunity is eyeing. I've got a sneaking suspicious it's going to come back into play. We're still no closer to clarity, mind you. We just know what to look for. And, while we're getting ready to start a phase of the year that's usually bullish, I'm not sure I'd blindly bet on it this time around. I'm not just sharing these doubts because I'm an inherent pessimist either. I just keep seeing little odd signs of things that aren't exactly wrong, but aren't quite right either. Case in point? While the market was up modestly today, there were actually more declining NYSE stocks than rising ones. Plus, though there was more up volume than down volume, the up volume on the NYSE was still sub-par. That's been the overall trend since we got back from Thanksgiving, in fact. Warren Buffett Did WHAT? You know, I could never deny Warren Buffett was the king of long-term investing. And unlike so many other pundits and investing geniuses, he's got the track record to hold up as proof that at one point in time he knew what he was doing. Now though, I'm not so sure. As it turns out, he bought a sizeable stake in a REIT called Seritage Growth Properties (SRG), which is the real estate investment trust created by the sale of some Sears Holdings' (SHLD) stores, which was a way to raise money for the struggling retailer. In turn, Sears now pays rent to Seritage as a leaseholder for those store sites. There's nothing wrong with the sale-leaseback premise. There is something wrong when your one and only tenant is Sears, which is still bleeding money because CEO Eddie Lampert simply can't figure out how to sell more merchandise to more customers. Those who've been following the Sears saga from arm's length will likely know the EBITDA losses the retailer's been booking of late has been getting sequentially smaller, suggesting progress is being made. Those who know the Sears story intimately, though, will know the top line is dwindling at a faster pace than the EBITDA loss is shrinking. Mathematically, at their current pace, sales could reach zero before EBITDA reaches a breakeven point. Never even mind about the fact that "ITDA" still takes income right off the bottom line. What does this have to do with Warren Buffett? It's just unusual that he would buy a REIT 100% reliant on Sears Holdings' ability to make its rent payments. Sears is losing money left and right, and sooner or later it's not going to be able to pay one or another of its bills. Lease payments will be one of the easiest ones to skip. Remember, the company wasn't paying any rent on the store sites it owned, so rent is a whole new drag on earnings. Though not directly, indirectly the decision flies right in the face of his frequent advice " Buy high quality businesses with a strong competitive advantage." Sears has no quality, nor competitive advantage. Geez, could it really be time for the Oracle of Omaha to hang it up? Hear it For Yourself Last but not least, one of our Featured Stocks hosted a conference call today to talk about recent progress with one of the drugs in its pipeline. Specifically, Relmada Therapeutics (RLMD) gave investors an update on BuTab - buprenorphine - after verifying it can be safely and effectively administered orally. If you missed the conference call, the webcast can be replayed at the company's website. Just look in the right-hand column of this page.