Thursday Evening

SPX Daily

The bulls stepped up today and provided a bounce right into heavy resistance on the S&P500 between 1355-1375. This is probably going to be a tough spot for the bulls. So far, there are a few positive reactions to earnings... AMGN & PCLN are up, and AMZN, SBUX & FB down..... although AMZN keeps trying to claw its way back to positive. FB has pretty much done a face plant... no "likes" from anybody so far. The S&P500 doesn't look too bad, although the bulls will probably need to get active in the futures market tonight for this rally to continue. A close above 1375 on SPX opens up the potential for 1400. 

Thursday Afternoon

Gold Futures (Aug) Daily

Gold is poking up through a descending triangle pattern that has been in play for a few months. If it's a fakeout move, it will most likely fall back under 1600 within the next few days. I don't believe it's a fakeout though... and if it comes back down to the 1600ish level, I'm betting the bulls will step in and hold it. There hasn't been a noticeable change in the Hulbert Gold Sentiment data since I posted it HERE. In addition to that, the latest Public Opinion data from Sentimentrader.com (updated every Wednesday) is showing a bullish reading as well. All things considered, as we head into the strongest few months of the year, I'm more interested in buying the dips than selling the rips.

Thursday Morning

Gator's Chart of the Day: SP-500

Sometimes all of those fancy lines and averages and bands and channels and assorted whirligigs just clutter up a chart.  This one is pretty basic. The pattern is clear and if it continues then the next few days should be up from here.

Expect the expected.  If it doesn't happen then that tells you something and you make adjustments or you get run over.