Not a whole lot going on in the news today other than the normal cheers or worries over Spain and Greece. Just earlier in the week, Spain was supposedly the reason the markets found some strength and of course today, it's worries over Spain that has the markets nervous. Which is it? Neither if you're asking us. Advertisement A private website Wall Street doesn't want anyone OVER AGE 55 logging onto This private Internet site could help you collect as much as $653 per week in extra retirement income... Without touching regular investments... And without going through brokers and money managers ever again. Click here to learn more... Advertisement It is worth noting that Bernanke came out yesterday urging Washington to get things done because we're sitting on a fiscal cliff that he believes could put the U.S. economy right back into recession if policies aren't put into effect to keep our economy's fragile recovery intact. Again, more bad news to price into the market. Like we said in Wednesday's edition, the markets trade based on what it thinks is going to happen down the road, not what has actually already happened. The more doom and gloom we get from the media, the more likely this market is going to do one of two things... First, if none of the potentially disastrous issues surrounding Europe happen, the markets are going to roar. If anything disastrous does happen in Europe, the markets are likely going to scare the living daylights out of everyone and then very quickly leave investors behind and start moving higher. Bernanke's plea for bi-partisanship seems politically driven to me and I seriously doubt Washington is going to simply let us fall off that cliff. So how do we make sense of all of this economic back and forth banter? We don't. It's becoming pretty clear that there's a range now we can rely on to not only tell us where things will be headed, but also provide us with context for what might be some pretty profitable short-term tradable opportunities. And, that range is a serious catalyst for things to come depending on what happens. I'll explain. I've provided a chart of our favorite index, the NDX. For those of you who may be new to our newsletter or to the markets, the NDX represents the top 100 stocks on the NASDAQ. Some of those stocks include Apple, Google, Starbucks, Amazon etc... We focus on the NDX simply because we believe that between the three major indexes, the NDX, the S&P and the DOW, the NDX is the most leading indicator of the three. Whatever the NDX tends to do before the other two is usually a prelude for things to come. With that being said, we've included a daily chart of the NDX here providing you with a range, that if broken to either side, is likely going to tell us quite a bit about what this market will want to do over the next while. Additionally, this range may also give you some levels to work with, as well as some pretty favorable risk/reward opportunities. You'll see here I've included two horizontal blue lines in this daily chart of the NDX. The top blue line provides what we believe to be a critical resistance level, while the bottom blue line represents a critical support level. Both levels in our opinion provide excellent opportunities to either purchase some QQQ put options around that upper band of 2613, while the lower band of 2444 provides an opportunity to get long some call options on the QQQ's, which is the ETF that tracks the NDX. If the NDX breaks below that 2444 level, we suspect all hell is going to break loose to the downside. If that's the case, you'll take some lumps and get out. Conversely, if you decide to pick up some put options around the upper band, if the NDX breaks above that 2613 level in convincing fashion, there's a decent possibility that last week's low was the bottom and you'll want to cover up and get long some call options. So, as you can see there's an opportunity to make some pretty good money if you either fade the rally with put options or fade the selloff around the lower band with some call options. What happens between that range is anyone's guess, so I wouldn't get careless guessing from day-to-day if we're somewhere inside that range, like today for example. It's important not to get overly hyperactive unless day trading is your game. For the most part, day trading should be left to the market makers and those who actually are very successful at doing it for a living. If you wonder why our Small Cap Newsletter opens each day and often provides our opinions on the broader markets, as well as some index options strategies, it's simply because it's one of the best ways to try and make money in a down market, give you something to potentially profit from when small caps are quiet but more importantly to know what the playing field is like when you decide to step into the game. The market ebbs and flows so it's extremely valuable to know when may be a great time to put money to work for the long haul or when to take money off the table before the rest of the herd. When we called the top of this market back in early April, it gave all of our readers an opportunity to get out and lock in profits before the rest of the investing world knew what was going on. And, it's going to be equally as important to know when this market has bottomed so we can take advantage of further upside. Stay tuned as we always do our best to try and give you the necessary information to stay ahead of the rest. Have an excellent weekend.