US markets appear to be in correction / consolidation mode. Internals have been vacillating between positive & negative for almost a month, but stayed negative last week – even Thursday's rally was not enough to get back to positive. Still, it looks more like a modest correction than a major pullback.

Canadian markets look a little different. After dramatically underperforming US markets all year, something appears to be changing. Last week Canadian markets outperformed (dropped less). And gold stocks actually went up and outperformed gold (who would have thought that was even possible?). Thursday & Friday were telling. Canadian markets had better volume on up Thursday than on down Friday. Gold stocks did likewise. US markets generally did not show this pattern. I believe this is an indication of some rotation from overbought US stocks to oversold Canadian resource stocks.

I've been a net seller of Venture stocks since the uptrend broke in early March, but I've now turned neutral on the juniors. The downtrend line from early March has not been broken, but the accelerated downtrend from early April has. I'm not expecting a rip roaring rally, at least until the second half of the year, but I think a basing process is now underway and the Dec low will probably hold.

If I'm wrong about this there is potential for disaster ahead – longer term charts show an almost symmetrical head & shoulders topping pattern with a neckline near the Dec lows. If the Dec lows are significantly violated, and the pattern is valid, it measures down an incredible 1000+ points and would take Venture below 400. I consider this as virtually impossible, so either the neckline will hold or the pattern will fail. Head & shoulders patterns are generally reliable, so I'm betting the neckline holds.