Well folks, it looks like the Elite Opportunity's John Monroe was right so far about the market hitting a short-term bottom with yesterday's and/or today's lows. While the indices all hit lower lows today, stocks also recovered quite nicely mid-day. It looks as if the market just needed to slide a little lower - to clean up a few more lingering stops that hadn't been triggered yet - before getting back in a bullish gear. I still have doubts about today's bullish reversal getting very good traction for very long. In fact, I'm still ultimately expecting lower lows to be made before October comes to a close. Yet, I also think John Monroe was really on to something with his near-term bullish thesis from yesterday's EO newsletter. Take a look at the zoomed-in chart of the S&P 500 to see just how big of a reversal today was. After hitting a new multi-week low of 1926.03, the bulls came roaring back. The same goes for the NASDAQ Composite. It touched the 100-day moving average line (gray) yesterday, but apparently had to move all the way under it to flush out any lingering would-be sellers. Once the composite hit a low of 4367.74, that was it - the bulls were wading back in. The Russell 2000 hit low of 1078 today, and came back in spades to give us a 1.0% gain for the day. Just as a reminder, in yesterday's newsletter we told you how Elite Opportunity's John Monroe was looking for the Russell 2000 to briefly slide under 1083 for the bulls to plow back in. The NASDAQ 100 and the S&P 500 had floors at 4000 and 1948 - respectively - that would need to be clipped first before the bounceback rally could take hold. Well, some of those lines were crossed yesterday, and any that weren't crossed yesterday were crossed today. Once all of them had been touched though, that was it - the reversal based on the move to the market's near-term extremes played out perfectly. Nice call John. It gets better. While the stock market ended up with a decent finish on Thursday, it's not like the picture was rosy all day today. Remember, stocks were actually very deep in the red as of 11:45 am EST, and looked like they were going lower at the time. Then I got Thursday's Elite Opportunity newsletter at 11:49 am, which said this: "Now that the Russell has cracked a key support level, the NASDAQ 100 has breached 4,000 and both the S&P 500 and DOW having achieved the complete 5/8 retracement from their August lows to their recent all-time highs, there's some strong context suggesting at least a sharp reversal as soon as today." Care to guess what has happening by 12:00 noon? Yep, the bulls were taking charge again, creating what was a very nice and very trade-worthy short-term uptrend. It wasn't just a good call for EO subscribers. It was freakishly timely, suggesting to Elite Opportunity members they may want to get long/bullish again at the exact time the lows of the day were being made. The way it all played out not only underscores the importance of getting and acting on intraday information in real-time rather than on an end-of-day basis, but it also once again illustrates just how good John Monroe is when it comes to navigating the market. In any case, today's market action confirms John's suspicion with a couple of different clues. One of those clues is the shape of today's bars. Take the S&P 500 for instance. The open and the close were both right at the same 1946 level, and both the open and the close were at the extreme upper portion of the high/low range, meaning there was something of a long "tail" left hanging today. It's called a doji, and more specifically, it's a dragonfly (shaped) doji. Regardless of what you call it, it's a bar that indicates indecision and transition. In this particular case, it's a transition from a downtrend into an uptrend. While a doji bar doesn't necessarily indicate how long a new trend will last, it does point to the market's next likely direction. [Do a web search for 'dragonfly doji' for some great examples of how and why this clue works.] At the same time, the VIX made a mirror image of the S&P 500's reversal effort, suggesting it wants to move lower now that the area above the ceiling at 17.2 has been touched. Again, this reversal clue may last for weeks, or maybe just a couple of days. And, you already saw the NASDAQ also formed a dragonfly doji on Thursday, hinting at more near-term upside. Our expectation? It's still the same as yesterday. In other words, we're still looking for a near-term bounce, and looking for it even more so after today. We're not planning on any rally getting very far, however. The 50-day moving average line around 1975 is still likely to be a ceiling, repelling any bullish thrust. The 20-day line could be there within a couple of days to lend a helping had as a ceiling, and both of those moving average lines could be back to the key 1966 level by the time either could be tested. It's just a big hurdle to get past without some sort of capitulatory, washout move being made first. We'll continue to do our end of day analysis and outlook, but let's face it - the trade-worthy reversal we saw today was a real-time event, ultimately spurred by the move under John Monroe's big lines in the sand. If you really want to trade this environment, it's going to take real-time guidance. I can't recommend the Elite Opportunity service enough. Or, here's food for thought - if you missed the entry into today's long/bullish opportunity, that's one thing. What if you also happen to miss a similar intraday top and subsequent pullback into a major downtrend? It could happen just as quickly as today's reversal did. I may not be able to tell you about it until after the market closes... when it's too late to do anything about it. Sign up for a free test drive today by going here, or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/?vmpd_ckstr[click_track]=Newsletter&vmpd_ckstr_redirect=/pages/SCNEO/v1/] Back in the Hunt We don't know how closely you're keeping tabs on our open positions, but we look for news and at their charts at least once a day. If anything worth mentioning pops up, we let you know. Well, although we only have one open trade in the SCN newsletter portfolio right now, something noteworthy happened to it today - it made a pretty big jump and got itself back into a position for a breakout. Just as a reminder if you didn't get into it, the one open position we currently own is ePlus (PLUS), which we paid roughly $56.66 for a week and a half ago. After a wobbly start, today's 2.5% advance rekindles the bullish undertow, and puts us back within reach of a breakout. Just as a reminder, we got into ePlus based on our expectations for a break out of a converging wedge and above a ceiling at $58.90. Although we've yet to see this happen, this is still our basic theory about how things are going to take shape. This week's pop simply pushed PLUS up and off one of the lower, rising edge of the wedge shape. We were probably going to sell it if we didn't get a move like this soon. On the news front, ePlus announced today it had been recertified by Cisco to sell and service the company's networking equipment. It's kind of a big deal, and kind of not. The company could still operate without Cisco's blessing, and it's not like any existing customer would truly care if PLUS wasn't certified. The certifications certainly can't hurt though, and it might mean a little more business will be won than could have been without the certification. We continue to look for new trading ideas, and we continue to watch the Elite Opportunity newsletter for picks we can borrow from them. Right now, however, there's nothing we see worth adding. Don't forget we get big news about last month's unemployment on Friday morning.