Mid-day Update… The first step to bottoming: Stop falling.

Proximity to weekend, and to targets, suggest keeping one eye open.

Holding a test of this morning’s 2492.25 bias-down signal had put into play an offsetting test of its bias-up signal. The pre-10:15 2512.00 was never exceeded to confirm. And the 2478.25 bias-down signal was recovered coming out of the bias environment. So, the upside objective became moot.

And the morning’s drop extended down to 2463.25. That’s within 10 points of the decline’s next major objective.

It’s too late to fulfill an objective and then to launch a recovery. Perhaps a corrective rally — especially considering the proximity to this weekend’s illiquidity, which is largely in practice a 4-5 day weekend despite Monday’s shortened session. Has everyone thrown in the towel on the mythical, proverbial Santa rally so that it can finally begin?

Before we can plot out a rally’s targets and trajectory, we need to confirm the decline has ended. And we can’t. The recent excessive optimism warns against viewing bounces prematurely as recoveries. Bearish WedEX scheduled for tomorrow afternoon suggests otherwise, too. But we do want to be aware if the decline is waning, and it just neglected to trigger bias-down.