Hope you had a great weekend. It rained here all weekend. My golf tournament got cancelled and I'd like to know if any of you have an explanation for why it always seems to rain most on the weekends? Thank God for NCAA Basketball I guess. The markets have appeared to enter more of a grinding mode in recent days. The longer this continues, the more convinced I am that we'll want to make new highs. However, there are some interesting things taking place in the market and since it's Monday, I thought today's edition could serve as a backdrop to help you navigate your way. First, I think it's important to point out that the S&P and the DOW both outperformed the NDX last week which, if I'm not mistaken, has only happened two weeks out of the year so far. It's too soon to tell but it could mean a flight to more cyclical names and conservative ideas. What's even more compelling is the VIX broke below its three year low last week briefly and bounced back. We're approaching extremely complacent levels so we're going to start keeping a very close eye. The VIX is the ticker symbol for the Chicago Board Options Exchange Market Volatility Index, a popular measure of the implied volatility of S&P 500 index options. Often referred to as the fear index or the fear gauge, it represents one measure of the market's expectation of stock market volatility over the next 30 day period. The VIX is quoted in percentage points and translates, roughly, to the expected movement in the S&P 500 index over the next 30-day period, which is then annualized. The bottom line is the VIX can be used as an excellent indicator for when the markets may start looking like they want to rollover. Right now the VIX is telling us there's not much fear in the market and that can often be a sign of not-so-good things to come. The VIX's lowest point in recent years was back at the very tail end of 2006 and we all know what happened in the back half of 2007. I've included a monthly chart here so you can see what I'm referring to. Now don't get me wrong, we've set our targets and have had no real major signals yet that make us think this market wants to take a break. However, if you've been following along with us then you know we're not that far away from our target on the NDX of around 2770 to 2790. A nice move higher would likely send the VIX to extreme lows and that's where we'll probably start to question what this market may want to do. Since the NDX has led the rally now for the last couple of years, it's also going to become important to see what the NDX wants to do in relationship to the S&P and DOW. For now, everything "appears" to be cooperating for this market to continue making new highs. GOLD - The Currency We Can Trust We published our view on gold back on February 10th and pointed out that the monthly chart of the GLD was giving us some interesting perspective. The GLD represents probably the largest gold ETF. We pointed out that a break below the 3x3 on the monthly chart could send gold into a pretty good selloff. You can see here that shares of GLD this month continue to experience weakness, so if the month of March closes below the 3x3, I'd probably run for hills if I was a gold investor. However, if March still remains above the 3x3 at month end, then it's a moot point for now. Since the World's largest currencies can't seem to be trusted these days, gold remains the safest currency of choice. You can't print gold so you can be rest assured that there is always going to be a high demand for gold until we can get solid footing with the world's biggest economies. And, when I say solid footing I don't mean saving growth at the expense of simply printing more money or swallowing debt. I should also point out here that if the GLD trades back to that $175 level, my guess is gold is going to make new highs and that move will likely be extremely parabolic to the upside. For now, you gold investors are probably doing just fine but I wanted to make sure and keep ya'll updated on what we pointed out back in early February. OIL Gets Legs... Again If you think commodities trade primarily on their true intrinsic value anymore, think again. I've been convinced for a very long time now that the price of oil has more to do with trading speculation than it does supply and demand. True, I'm not the OPEC Minister and I don't spend every waking moment trying to figure out exactly why oil has done what it's done over the last ten years or so, but what I can tell you is there is no way that the demand for oil around the world has quadrupled and quintupled in the last ten years. That would be an insult to everyone's intelligence if that's what they're trying to tell us. It's a bit of a joke for sure. Oil stocks and the commodity took center stage as a trading instrument in the last ten years and that's where I think we've blown it. It is what it is now but I do find it interesting that oil is still well off its highs but the price of gasoline is at all-time highs. Make some sense of that for me? I've included a monthly chart of oil here. As you can see, traders and speculators are doing what they can to get oil back to its 2011 high of $115 per barrel. Based on my observation of the chart, we're going to get there. As a matter of fact, I think we're on our way to at least $125 per barrel in fairly short order, meaning this year. What will the price of gasoline look like then? I don't even want to guess. Although oil does mean for consumer spending, I think consumers will adjust some way somehow. As much as news pundits and the media love to concentrate on it, I personally don't think the price of oil is a very good gauge of future economic growth or consumer sentiment. It simply means we'll either drive more or drive less. Or, we'll just start riding bikes, taking public transportation or purchase alternative energy vehicles. As consumers, we always find a way to adjust. That's my opinion and I'm entitled. In Case You Missed It... CDXC On National TV One of our Featured Stocks, Chromadex (CDXC) was on NBC's Dateline last evening. Did any of you catch it? Nobody told us they'd be airing on TV last night so we missed it. The innovative natural products company providing proprietary, science-based solutions and ingredients to the dietary supplement industry, was featured as an industry expert on supplement testing on the investigative reporting television series "Dateline NBC," which aired Sunday, March 18th at 7 p.m. EDT on NBC. The show focused on the practice of fraudulent analytical testing practices known as "dry labbing," in which lab results pertaining to the potency and identity of ingredients as labeled are suspected of having been deliberately manipulated or fabricated. "There are challenges in the dietary supplement industry in that laboratories supplying fictional results in lieu of performing appropriate analytical tests may mislead their clients and the This is a practice known as 'dry labbing,' " said ChromaDex Founder Frank Jaksch. "The 'Dateline NBC' investigative segment was an important first step in addressing this problem. Consumers need to have confidence that what is on the label matches what is in the product." ChromaDex is a major leader in the reference standards and services business with a customer-centric approach supported by scientific rigor. Clients include government, academia and leading Fortune 500 Companies. Its expertise in this market gives it a unique foundation for combining the power of nature with the science of health to develop and market natural and novel ingredients. The coverage the Company received last evening doesn't appear to have done much either way for the stock but I think the important takeaway here is the Company was chosen to be part of this special report because it is an industry expert and that should make every single investor of CDXC have the peace of mind to know that they're part of a Company that is a leader in their space. A strong vote of confidence for CDXC if you ask me. If any of you out there saw NBC's Dateline, we'd love to hear what you thought about it. See ya' tomorrow...