Markets continue to grind pretty much sideways in anticipation of some sort of guidance as to what the ECB plans to do in Europe over the next few days, as well as any hints from the Fed regarding further easing. I suspect much of this has been over played by the media though, so it's quite possible the markets aren't going to be affected much at all unless something extremely unexpected takes place. The reality right now is we're in a trader's market and while the NASDAQ continues to hover around that 2978 level all week, we'll likely get at least a short-term trend confirmation very soon. A break above or a break below is the big question. What I mean by a trader's market is regardless of news, large cap stocks and the major indexes are simply subject to what traders think the markets are going to do on a very short-term basis only right now. It doesn't appear long-term investors have a whole lot of conviction these days either way, which is evident by the continued volatility from week to week, but the last few days of sideways activity could finally be a prelude for where this market wants to go in the near-term. Quite honestly, nothing would surprise us at this point. We've made it pretty clear that our short-term sentiment is to the downside with our longer-term outlook having a bullish bias. However, at least for now, the markets do appear to be hanging in there. Even gold hasn't shown much conviction in recent months. The world's most coveted precious metal has been a complete bore since April after lighting up the charts in recent years and then confirming a major downtrend toward the end of last year. While the major indexes at least experienced a good run throughout the first quarter of the year, gold has waned. It's important to note gold has pretty much been the confidence gauge for how investors feel about our global economy in recent years, so if the recent price activity and downward trending of gold is any indication of things to come, we should be in decent shape going forward. If you remember, we called the reversal in gold suggesting its better days were behind it. I've included a chart of the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) here for your review. GLD is the largest ETF tracking the price of gold. By looking at the chart here, it's obvious gold is in a bearish downtrend, however, like we always say, nothing goes up or down in a straight line and it appears gold may be due for a bounce sooner than later. It's quite possible that if some unexpected shoe drops in the market, gold could rally. However, until proven otherwise, the bounce would likely be short lived. In our opinion, it would take an absolute economic disaster for gold to achieve its highs of last summer. Therefore, we believe there will continue to be further downside in gold before it ever decides to try and make a run for new highs. We are a long ways away from ever seeing gold back at 2011 levels. A solid bounce may be in the cards in the short-term, but the long-term suggests there's better money to be made elsewhere. I'm sure we'll get some die hard gold bugs telling us we're crazy, but the truth is that's just the way it is right now. CRAY Confirms it's a Good Stock to Own. Yelp Takes Center Stage. Yesterday after the close, Global supercomputer leader and SmallCap Network Featured Stock Cray Inc. (CRAY) announced their financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2012. Revenue for the quarter was $84.2 million compared to $67.9 million in the prior year period. The Company reported net income for the quarter of $147.4 million or $3.91 diluted income per share compared to a net loss of ($3.0 million) or ($0.08) per share in the second quarter of 2011. All in all, strong results. You can read the press release in its entirety here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cray-inc-reports-strong-second-200500000.html. More importantly, the Company suggested a wide range of results remains possible for 2012 by suggesting many variables may impact their results. One significant item is the timing of a single planned customer acceptance, which would represent approximately $150 million in product revenue. This is the largest system the Company has ever built and its acceptance is dependent on several items, including third-party components, all on a tight timeline due to previous delays. Assuming acceptance of this system occurs in 2012, as currently planned, the Company continues to anticipate total revenue to be in the range of $430-$450 million for the year. Since shares of CRAY have performed extremely well in the face of a bad market in recent months, we wouldn't be overly concerned about its 5% dip today. The stock is up nicely on the year, and yesterday's earnings report confirms the Company is growing and doing well. We'd use this as a potential buying opportunity rather than focusing on their somewhat cautious outlook as a negative. It's just smart management of expectations on their part, while their financials continue to look solid. YELP's earnings after the close today are likely going to a very big focal point, especially since most all social media stocks have been getting pounded across the board. Investors of Facebook have to be a bit frustrated with the way their stock has been behaving of late, but let's remember, at some point FB is going to stage a rally. It's current share price of roughly $21.50 per share suggests a logical profit taking level for short sellers, but until we get a much clearer reversal indicator, we feel you're better off just staying out of the way. Should YELP blow out their numbers this afternoon, that may bode well for the rest of the social media space, but it should definitely bode well for shares of YELP. We've been up as much as 40% on YELP since initiating coverage, but the stock has pulled back since hitting a short-term high of roughly $27 per share earlier last month. Since this will be their first full reporting quarter, it's going to be very interesting to see how well they've managed Wall Street's expectations. Hopefully, they won't pull a Zuckerberg and follow suit with Facebook. A strong report from YELP would be a strong vote of confidence for the social media space, so stay tuned.