As if Google isn't doing enough to rile up the Federal Trade Commission, today it announced that it is offering $68 million in cash to buy Global IP Solutions (GIPS), a company that makes Voice Over IP (VOIP) software. Google's press release says it's offering to buy all the shares of Oslo, Norway-based GIPS for $2.12 a share. GIPS is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and the offer represents a 27% premium over the closing price of May 14, but after being acquired it will be delisted and become part of Google. A Wall Street Journal article noted that GIPS financial performance is quite small -- it only has $12M in revenue and was losing money -- but that its tools will be useful to plug VOIP technology into various Google communications applications.

Well, gold had a nice aggressive run from $1,100 to $1,250 in the space of a month. And now, in classic fashion, gold is experiencing one of its nasty bull-market corrections. It's down about $16 today. Yet another indication that you should sell gold when CNBC announcers are getting hysterical about it, and buy it when they forget about it. I think nailing the bottom of this particular gold correction is going to be very difficult. Gold is entering the third and final stage of its majestic bull market, which will result in a parabolic rise. It's going to be wild from here on out, and I don't think $50 intra-day moves are out of the questions. That being said, this may be your last chance to get in before price movements become too big to stomach. Where do I think you do that? The typical pattern has been for the correction to retrace 50% of the prior move. As I mentioned the last aggressive move was $150, so you could reasonably expect to retrace half of that, which would yield $75, down to $1175. But in this case, we might not get that far down. Due to the accelerating nature of the gold chart, I think there may only be a few days to buy it in my "buy zone," which is between $1175 to $1200. I would love to be buying more gold in the green circle identified in my chart below. My stop would be $1150. I really, really doubt that we will get down as low as $1150. Now, if you don't own any gold, it's a little more tricky than if you've been riding this move up and sold off some of the gold into the strength. If you are trying to establish a position it may be wise to just wait a few days and see how this correction pans out. The first say you see a decelerating decline at or below $1,200, that's the time to give it a shot.

Okay, so, as expected, the S&P filled the "Flash Crash" gap we talked about here a few days ago. Kind of. Now what? This morning we are exeperiencing a relief rally. The Euro is actually green by a few points. Gold is getting pummeled (as it always does after a $150 run). Will it last? I think it's important to see how powerful this rally is after a few days, rather than a few hours. I have covered my shorts for the time being but I expect to reload at a later date, possibly as early as later in the week. And I will be buying gold on its decent toward the 1200 area, where there is a lot of support. I will not really be impressed with a rally in stocks unless they can convincingly break through 1160 level on the S&P. There are too many reasons to sell right now.