I've cautioned my Profitable Investing subscribers in my last couple of messages to them that the stock market was facing significant overhead resistance. Yesterday's and today's setbacks may seem minor, but they reinforce my case. We're approaching a short-term top.

Stocks had ample reason to rally today. Oil and gold both fell sharply, with the Midas metal touching a three-month low. The dollar also pushed to its highest close in New York against the euro since mid-March.

However, none of these developments stirred much enthusiasm for equities. Apparently, investors are now reading the softness in commodities (and the mirror-image dollar rebound) as a sign that the U.S. economic slowdown is spreading beyond our shores. Weakening global business activity could feed back to America, hurting the one sector of our economy -- manufacturing exports -- that still looks reasonably healthy.

Technically, too, a number of breadth, volume and momentum gauges are signaling that the stock market needs to rest and regroup. We've come a long way since the March lows. Don't be surprised if the major indexes give back some of their gains in May.

To be sure, a monster surge in the next few days (past the 1425 barrier on the S&P 500 that I talked about in our May issue) could lay these concerns to rest. More likely, though, the market will pull back first. A breakthrough to much higher ground will have to wait a couple more weeks, at least.