Howdy folks. How was your Tuesday? It wasn't a great one for the market - the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke its 12-day winning streak with a small loss today, only tying a similarly impressive win streak logged back in early 1987. Still, what a run it was. And just for the record, it's not as if the market has been put into a tailspin. Stocks did give us plenty to think about though, which we'll detail below. However, before we get to any of the analysis we've got a couple of news items we need to share with you. In no particular order... We didn't get a chance to tell you this in yesterday's newsletter because we wanted to put 100% of the focus on Nexus Gold (NXXGF, CVE:NXS). It's still worth repeating today, though, even if the news is actually one day old. That is, another one of our Featured Stocks -- Lexaria Bioscience (LXRP, CNSX:LXX) -- has applied for a patent in Australia, but within the text of that news release unveiled something very interesting we weren't quite aware of. Matthew Briar has the whole scoop and some thoughts on the matter. We can summarize it here for you very quickly though... the company's got patent applications pending in 42 different countries, which we suspect pretty well protects it from one corner of the world to another. Lexaria hasn't said anything about expanding outside North America, but it hasn't said anything about not doing so either. Whatever the case, it's encouraging to see Lexaria Bioscience thinking this defensively this early in the game. Like we said, check out Matt's take on the matter for the full scoop. The other noteworthy news many of you will be interested in came from RepliCel Life Sciences (REPCF, CVE:RP), which we introduced to you back on February 15th. This is the company that;s addressing (among other things) pattern baldness and tendon problems. Like Lexaria, it too took a small but very meaningful step forward today, indicating a similar proactive mindset suggesting the company will hit the ground running at its earliest possible opportunity. In short, RepliCel Life Sciences has already lined up the development of prototype dermal injector devices that will be used in its wider spread clinical studies, and serve as something of a beta test in preparation for a market launch next year. James Brumley took a look at the news and passed along his perspective at the website. He agreed that it's encouraging to see the company thinking of these seemingly small details before rather than after the need arises. Speed is everything, even if only to prevent competitors from becoming copycats. Before we get to our look at the market, we do want to go ahead and knock out a couple more detailed looks at mid cap sectors. You may remember from the February 22nd newsletter how the S&P 400's stocks simply have a little more appeal to us right now than other segments of the market. We've been drilling down deeper into the group to see if we could pinpoint the mid cap sliver's best and worst segments. We've got two more sector-driven analysis to pass along to you today, once again in a very telling chart format. Those sectors are consumer staples and utilities. I'll show you why we picked those two groups in a moment. First, just a look at two pictures that really are worth a thousand words each. Here's the look at mid cap consumer staples as a group... ... and here's what the utility stocks in the S&P 400 index collectively look like. For the record, the S&P 400 Consumer Staples Index is trading at a trailing P/E of 23.9, while the utilities in this portion of the market's stocks are valued at a trailing P/E of 20.5. Our thoughts? We could do without the mid cap utilities, but we can't help but like the S&P 400's consumer staples names here. They've been able to make some oddly consistent earnings growth, and aren't unusually overpriced like so many other segments are at this time. The reason we wanted to do these two sectors today? They've both been lagging their peers; both are at the bottom of the performance chart below. But, it looks like the S&P 400 Consumer Staples Index is heating up, while the S&P 400 Utilities Index is testing the waters of lower lows. There may be a trade waiting for you in there. Again, though we don't love every sector in it, we think the S&P 400 and its constituents have more to offer investors than other groups do at this time. Last but not least, the market. It wasn't a terrible day - the S&P 500 is still holding well above the recently-established line in the sand at 2352. If you look closely at the chart though, you'll see something we haven't seen in a long, long time.... the VIX is on the verge of a break above a ceiling at 12.9. It's been brewing for a while, but if it breaks through tomorrow it'll be a sign that mindsets have turned bearish. Stocks should follow that lead shortly thereafter. With that being said, this is a situation where I'm going to punt to a higher authority and let you know what John Monroe over at the Elite Opportunity Pro newsletter told his subscribers today. He wrote: "Interestingly enough though, the NASDAQ did not make another new high yesterday, and that's a concern. Over the last few years, when the NASDAQ starts to lag, it's usually been a prelude for the major indices to stage a fairly sharp selloff. Not every time, but most of the time, and when we consider where these indices are right now, it goes without saying at least a minor pullback is way overdue." John went on to explain later in the EO Pro newsletter: "Believe me, we're not trying to pitch a case for a pullback right now, as much as we're just exercising some caution around current levels. As a matter of fact, in the event the markets love Trump's speech tonight, the next stop on the NASDAQ isn't until roughly 6,300, which represents a final expansion level, one you can't see in this daily chart of the NASDAQ here, because it's a good 400 points away from where we are now. Never say never. Based on the way these markets have been behaving, it's entirely possible from a technical perspective the NASDAQ could see 6,300 before it finally decides to throw in the towel for the year. Melt-ups are just that, and they usually always defy any sort of fundamental logic. Yet, there are still fundamental reasons to suggest we can get there. We're just going to need to see a far better GDP than the 1.9% the markets absorbed this morning. That number, no matter what anyone thinks, says or does, has not changed much at all over the last few years." It's amazing how John sees everything. Even more amazing is how he knows what to do about it (or what not to do about it) - we didn't give you everything he gave Elite Opportunity members in today's edition of the EO Pro newsletter. He clearly has his finger on the pulse of the market though. If you'd like access to John's trading insights and specific ideas, the Elite Opportunity service is an amazing value.... professional-level information for the individual trader like yourself. Here's how to get it.