Do any of you Elite Opportunity members own Amazon.com (AMZN)? You know.... the stock that went nuts today after a surprisingly strong earnings report? John Monroe's been pounding the table on AMZN for the better part of the year, and though shares have been climbing for as long as I can remember him talking about it, today's 10% jump pretty much puts the icing on the cake. I'll confess I've been one of the few Amazon critics, pointing out its perpetual inability or unwillingness to turn an actual profit. John took the other side of the debate, pointing out how sheer euphoria was far more important for the stock's future price than earnings performance was. John was right. That being said, I can't really say I'm surprised John was right. He's got a real knack for understanding (1) how the market should work, and (2) how the market really works. Trading success largely depends on coming to grips with both, and John's experience has let him master the art of getting the most out of the market. In any case, while I don't want to dwell on it too much today, I do want to share with you some of the insight John shared with Elite Opportunity members way back on December 22nd. In a nutshell, he saw it coming a mile away, and wrote: "I'm going completely op-ed on the idea of owning Amazon (AMZN) today. Meaning, no consideration for what Wall Street thinks about the Company or the analysts who continue to cover it. We all know Amazon is just that, a thousand pound gorilla in the online retail space. However, the Company's CEO, Jeff Bezos, has been criticized left and right for being far too aggressive in terms of delivering the type of profits and margins to help justify future appreciation in the idea. His efforts to dominate the space, as well as having aggressively entered into some highly successful and unsuccessful ventures outside of the space, have made things extremely tough for investors and professionals to get any sort of real gauge on the Company's stock, and its ability to provide the type of returns many have seen from other mega-cap companies like Facebook (FB) and Apple (AAPL) over the last few years... ...Here's a very old school exercise... ask around. Ask your family and friends how much time they've spent on the site this Holiday Season, ask them about their experience and more importantly, as them what percentage of their total shopping they did on the site this year. My strong guess is you're going to find an underlying theme well worth considering the best time to finally start owning this idea for the long haul again may be just around the corner... ...This might all seem like someone has paid me to promote the Amazon experience, I know. However, I can assure you this isn't the case. I'm simply sharing with you what I believe to be one of the most successful investing methods there is, buying good companies you use and like." AMZN shares are now up 80% since then. What can I say? John knows how to trade. Amazon is just one of many big-time calls he's made in recent months. He's got a trade in the EO portfolio right now that's up more than 50% since mid-May, and there are plenty more like that he's found in the recent past. If you're not a subscriber, you really should be. (Still) Playing With Fire Obviously we want to take a good look at the market today, as the indices broke under all the key support areas we talked about earlier in the week. From here, the bears have gotten a ball rolling that pretty much has to roll to the next tier of downside targets. Since we got the real estate discussion going on Wednesday though, we do want to close it out today with a look at this morning's new home sales data for June. Simply put, as of last month, newly-built homes are selling at a pace of 482,000. That's a dip from May's annualized pace 517,000, and a bit of a surprise after we learned on Wednesday that existing home sales hit a multi-year high pace of 5.49 million. The chart of the new home sales pace - and new home inventory - is what it is. I'm honestly not too concerned about the apparent lull in new home sales just yet; I've got a feeling the seasonal adjustment is skewing it lower than it should be anyway. Whatever the case, the bigger trend is still an uptrend, and the ground we've been losing on the new-home sales front is more than being offset by sales of existing homes. As for the stock market, it looks like the S&P 500 did end up breaking completely under a swath of support between 2090 and 2100. Now that the floor's been broken the market will pretty much have to follow through to the next floor(s). That's the 200-day moving average line (green) at 2063, and below that the lower 20-day Bollinger band at 2039. You may have also noticed there was plenty of volume behind today's move. Yeah, the VIX's upward effort petered out a little, but between the volume, the market's stumble, and the fact that the VIX still closed higher by 8.7% (at 13.74), it's kind of difficult to say the tide hasn't turned for the worst. The good news is, we'll either find support or not real soon. Either those floors at 2064 and 2039 will hold up, or they won't. If they don't, that's when the trouble begins in earnest. And I don't say that lightly. My concern is rooted in the appearance of the weekly chart, which I've updated for you below. We knew a month ago we had broken under a long-term support level. We didn't break under the 200-day line though, and we still haven't. But, boy are we close to doing so, and there's no way of saying the longer-term momentum hasn't turned neutral.... at best. One bad week could do the trick, and past that I just don't see any context for support anywhere below there. Could next week's interest rate decision be the final nail in the coffin? You have to wonder. Never even mind the fact that the market averages a loss of -0.18% in August and a loss of -0.65% in September. The flipside: I think I mentioned this earlier in the week but it bears repeating now - a good dip now will set up the usual Q4 rally. In that light, I'm almost kind of hoping for a bigger retreat over the course of the next few weeks. We'll deal with it if-and-when the time comes. For now, just focus on having a great weekend.