Welcome back, everyone. We trust you had a good weekend. Before I forget - or in case I forget - we won't be publishing on Friday because the exchanges will be closed in observance of Good Friday. (Boy, did Easter fall late this year or what?) Also, while it's tough to forget, if you haven't filed your taxes yet, don't forget they have to be postmarked by tomorrow. Ugh. Now, with all housekeeping stuff out of the way... While the market may have closed higher for the day, in a goofy sort of way, the half-hearted bounce effort was the most bearish bigger-picture outcome possible here. How's that? It's tough to explain, but the gist of the idea is this: Had the market continued to crumble and moved well below Friday's low, the three-day selloff would have been so big and nasty that the bulls would have had no choice but to go bargain hunting. That would have sparked an uptrend that looked so enticing with that first bullish effort, odds are good that all the recently-sidelined folks would have piled back into stocks and created a super-strong bounce effort and launched the S&P 500 well above a key ceiling at 1840. Once that momentum was established, it could have been strong enough to push the S&P 500 all the way to new highs to end April on a high note. We didn't get that though. We also didn't get a huge bullish pushback/bounce today that carried the index back above 1840, therefore not jump-starting what could have also been a sizeable trade-worthy move to higher highs. Instead, what we got was something in between.... just enough bullishness to make investors think there's a slim chance the market might recover now, but not enough bullishness to say the tables have been turned and the downtrend has been broken. Based on everything we've seen so far, we can only conclude that today was a rest period for the sellers. The odds still favor those sellers getting back on their horses tomorrow or later this week, as the momentum is still pointing us to the downside. The fact that the volume behind today's rally effort was minimal is another hint that there aren't a lot of bulls here - there were just a lot of bears taking a break. Until and unless the S&P 500 actually breaks under Friday's low of 1814.36 though, it's not like we're going to be ringing any more alarm bells. Speaking of the market, I thought Dr. Faessel had an interesting take on stocks in his comments this morning, complete with a specific support level that - should the S&P 500 break it - could mark the beginning. He also took a deep look at several sentiment indicators in his write-up. Portfolio Update Just as a reminder, we shed PICO Holdings (PICO) and Cooper Cos. (COO) from our portfolio's picks on Friday (from Thursday's newsletter). We didn't see anything wrong with them fundamentally - we just didn't like the way they were acting. That left us with Genesco (GCO) and Astec (ASTE), both of which we're still holding. Well, Astec has had a tough go of things since Thursday... no news, but a lot of selling pressure. We're actually below our stop level there, but I'm going to suggest hanging onto it anyway. We've only got two positions left, so it's not like we have a lot of exposure. I just get the feeling this one's due for a bounce. As for Genesco, you may have seen the Seeking Alpha article posted yesterday pointing out how several insiders had been selling lately. I wasn't impressed, and the market didn't seem to be either. GCO closed up 0.6% today, forming a nice reversal effort from Friday's doji bar. I can tell you what those insiders were doing - they were locking in a profit on their positions while profits were to be had. Remember, GCO was up as much as 10% since the beginning of the year in March, and the stock's gained nearly 50% since the end of 2012. I'd probably be selling some too, if I had a big gain to protect. We're not in the same position those insiders were, however, so we're going to have to be patient with our position. For what it's worth, while the last month or so has been volatile, in the long run I still see more demand than supply for shares of Genesco. And, I suspect the next move above $79.00 is going to be the one that catapults the stock out of its lull. We also added AES (AES) and Valmont Industries (VMI) to the watchlist of potential trades we could add to the portfolio, We're also going to add Pozen (POZN) to the watchlist, though that's the only new one for this week. Last week's implosion pretty much obliterated any budding momentum for all stocks, so it was pretty slim pickin's with this weeks scans. Thing is, we're not pulling the trigger on either of them yet. There's no sense in jumping into a new long trade if it's not clear the market's tide is going to push them in the right direction. With that being said, There's more than one way to skin a cat, however. If you're looking for some other trading ideas, the site's contributors always have something to chew on. For instance, Peter Graham named four marijuana stocks that could be worth a closer look. A couple of 'em were names I had never even heard of, so if you're looking for a cannabis pick that hasn't been traded to death, Graham's got the top-shelf stuff. Or, if you'd just rather be given a fish that taught how to fish, Doman continues to light it up. He's once again on the trading leaderboard for the one-month timeframe, mostly fueled by a brilliant call on Clean Diesel Technologies (CDTI) from March 5th. The stock's up 93% since then. He's got a handful of newer picks that may well be worth a shot too. Or, if you want the narrative AND the specific entries and exits, I can't recommend the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity enough. I think I mentioned it last week, but it bears repeating now how the SCN EO was just crushing it on the short-term trading front using leveraged ETFs. Meanwhile, what I didn't mention then was how three of the nine longer-term open trades in the Elite Opportunity portfolio are up more than 20%. In this kind of rocky environment, that's phenomenal. That's the cool thing about John Monroe's picks... many of them are so technically and fundamentally strong, they can shrug off a bearish marketwide tide. You can even get a free two-week test drive by going here , or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/?vmpd_ckstr[click_track]=Newsletter&vmpd_ckstr_redirect=/pages/SCNEO/v1/