When is a bias-up not a bias-up?

When it is invalidated. Which this one is threatening.

[pay]The noon hour’s probe of fresh highs extended through the noon hour’s exit to 1379.50. Its reaction down was slow enough to still trigger the 1378.00 bias-up signal. It was not touched by 1:30, let alone broken which would have invalidated it.

But 1378.00 was being attacked to within 1 tick before 1:30, touched just after 1:30, and now also probed down to 1377.50. Not exactly the most confident bias-up.

Meanwhile, the fourth leg of the bearish setup described earlier has formed — the dreaded plateau. No overbought RSIs are outstanding, and the 1386.25 bias-up target would be invalidated by exiting the bias environment back under 1378.00 at 2:30.

Prior to that is the 2:15 FOMC announcement. A break maintained under 1377.25 would be likely to trend down to at least 1373.75. It would be vulnerable to breaking sharply lower. Exiting the bias environment above 1378.00 would keep 1386.25 in-play.

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