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Wow. Based on yesterday's eventual reaction to the Fed's take on things, we knew the market didn't really like what it was hearing. But, after having some time to sleep on it, today's big bearish opening gap and subsequent drubbing speaks volumes about just how rattled traders are here.

I'm sticking to my argument I first posed yesterday - this pullback was going to happen no matter what; the would-be sellers just needed a reason to pull the trigger. The cause is irrelevant though. The only thing that matters now is the fact that stocks are under fire, and we have to deal with.

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Happy Fed-Day everybody. As you already know, Ben Bernanke spoke today, and investors listened. They also didn't seem to like what they heard. I've got a quick reality check on the matter for you. Before we get to it though, something else happened today I need to spout off on, as it's already starting to impact weight-loss drug manufacturers like Arena Pharmaceuticals (ARNA) and VIVUS (VVUS).

It Doesn't Really Matter

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Well folks, it's pretty clear at this point traders are sticking to the sidelines, mostly waiting on the Federal Reserve to tell us something in the midst or aftermath of this week's big meeting. There's going to be plenty of rhetoric and chatter when it's over tomorrow... the kind that can move the market.

Yeah, the market was up today, even if it faded a little from the high. Volume was rock-bottom, however, meaning most folks just didn't want to take the risk of being in or out of a new trade headed into whatever Bernanke and his friends are going to say tomorrow afternoon. The only people who were digging in today - and there weren't many of them - were the kamikazes betting the Fed's going to be dovish.

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Happy Wednesday ladies and gents. We hope the first half of your trading week is going well, and we hope the last half will be even better. Anyway, today's action was more of the same... bearishness. Yet (and we've talked about this ad nauseam lately), the market's still not reached that technical point of no return.

We'll dissect the market "as of" today in a moment. First, a couple of not-entirely-random thoughts.

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Well, no real surprises on Tuesday. We made a point of showing you how the market rolled over on Monday, unable to hold itself above the 20-day moving average line and slipping a little into the red. Today's pullback was just a continuation of that bearish reversal. It still doesn't change the fact that stocks are stuck in a range here, with no clear idea of when they'll rock their way out of the rut. The summer snooze begins.

The nearby daily chart of the S&P 500 tells us all we need to know. Stocks started near the high for the day, and spent the better part of the session making their way lower. That move confirms that the 20-day moving average line (at 1646.4) is at least something of a ceiling.

On the other hand, so what? There's still a major floor now around 1612, where the lower Bollinger band and the 50-day moving average line are about to converge. The S&P 500 rebounded - a little - the last time they were brushed earlier in the month, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think it could happen again in the future.