Mid-day Update… They’re not bashful.

Selling becomes much more obvious.

Pullbacks can be constructive and healthy to an ongoing rally. They help to keep pessimism alive, which is bullish from a contrarian perspective. They help to trap shorts, which can fuel a recovery as they’re “squeezed” into covering. And they can neutralize attractions below, letting new rally legs extend unencumbered.

Pullbacks can also become trend reversals.

All of the benefits I listed for pullbacks can be bullish when they don’t damage the chart. Holding support, developing during irrelevant timing windows, artificial catalysts (e.g. knee-jerk reactions), leaving “unfinished business above,” etc.

Those features aren’t part of today’s pullback.

More so, today’s sellers are hardly bashful. Reactions down from fresh highs on all other days this week were limited to some prior support, or else recovered back above a relevant level before gaining traction. Today’s selling has twice triggered bias-down, and quickly fallen to its objective (this afternoon’s 2763.25 bias-down target was just met to within 3 ticks).

Recovering back into positive territory today is not impossible. In fact, a 7-point bounce is underway from attacking the target. But extending back into positive territory is unlikely, and so is confirming yesterday’s breakout. That wouldn’t be irrecoverable unless this afternoon includes another steep downleg.