This may have been the most boring Monday in the markets I’ve seen in a long time.  The only thing that is for sure, however, is that the S&P 500 will rise and if it doesn’t do so early in the session it will do so late.  So, officially, as Zerohedge pointed out, a new zero-volume ramp job brought equities up 7 points to 1525 while Gold, Oil and the Euro may as well have stayed home.  Then again, given the drama of the past couple of weeks, maybe a little of the old stability is not a bad thing.

Gold gave back all of the gains made during Asian trading last night as the selling started right on cue with the European open to close the afternoon Globex session at 1573.20.  The Euro was effectively unchanged at $1.303 and Brent crude softened another $0.38 to close at $110.08.  All three traded within very narrow bands on the day and all still have a bearish cloud over them.  To lift that in the short term I’d like to see an hourly close tonight above $1584 in Gold.  That would set up a bullish posture for Tuesday which the bears have to respond to. This would imply Euro strength and some good piece of news.  There isn’t much on the calendar tomorrow so market action will be headline driven.

I expect we will hear very little in the coming weeks about what is happening in Italy.  No news means it is bad for the EU as Beppi Grillo presses his advantage.