Markets finally had a strong week last week. Things popped higher on Monday, as SPX closed just under 1990. Tuesday and Wednesday saw some struggles with the direction as the trading range narrowed. However, Thursday's Fed Minutes gave buyers reasons to push markets higher. Friday was a flat with small gains. SPX managed to close near 2015.

We also had a nice week with most of our trades in the “plus” column. Our calls on GLD yielded profits as high as +59%. Our stock trades on JUNO and PTCT were quite nice as well! Here are the closed trades for the week:

For the week, the Dow (DIA) was up +612.12 points; SPX added +63.53 points; Nasdaq (QQQ) gained +122.69 points. Gold advanced last week, closing above $1155/ounce. Old also jumped, with WTI trading near $50/barrel! At the time of this writing, Asian markets were mostly up. Here are how the US markets looked after Friday's close:

SPX

On Friday, SPX added +1.46 points to close at 2014.89. Its daily MAs and MACD went up.

Nasdaq

Nasdaq gained +19.68 points to close at 4830.47. Its daily MAs and MACD also went higher.

Both SPX and Nasdaq managed to stay above their respective daily MAs. The recent strength in energy stocks has helped SPX; on the other hand, the weakness in biotechs have held back Nasdaq. What's also interesting is that after the recent pulled back, it seems that more money shifted into the blue-chip stocks, as the Dow has been very strong:

The Dow (DJI)

Last week, the Dow managed to close above 17,000, and it is up +11.2% from its recent low, much higher than the small-caps (Russel 2000), which is up only about +8% from the lows.