Dodo Bird Sighted

In an extreme rarity in the new paradigm market, we had futures down sharply and an open of -1%.  Looking at a 4 month chart the last occurrence of an open significantly lower than the previous day's close would appear to be the 2nd to last session in February.  Aside from that ... one episode seen in mid January; there does not appear to be any other session like this in all of 2010 aside from those 2... today would be #3.  (even the big down days in January were originated from flat opens)  That's how common it has become for flat or positive opens even on days when we eventually falter.  Not that days of faltering happen much anymore.

For now, the S&P 500 is between the same 2 spots we cited coming into the week... overhead are last Thursday's highs near S&P 1214... we made a nice go at it, although yesterday we did not have the traditional premarket markup... but still got near the highs creating a potential "double top" (which would be bearish if indeed this is what has happened).  On the bottom side is the 20 day moving average which was the floor Monday.  Let us see if dip buyers rush in en masse as they did Monday around S&P 1189 if and when....

I continue to believe it's not worthwhile to make any directional bets until this situation is resolved.  Bull horns are safer to bring out at new yearly highs.  Any close below the 20 day moving average would be the first since mid February.  If that happens the first chance for the bears in months might finally be presented.  In between is the choppy stuff that has happened this week.

{question: are the words premarket and masse in yellow highlight for readers, or just me?}