Good Monday afternoon, one and all, or good Tuesday morning to you, depending on when you open up this newsletter in your e-mail. Regardless of when you're reading this edition of the newsletter though, you're probably well aware Monday wasn't exactly a great day for stocks. We'll get to our usual poking and prodding of today's action in a moment. The first thing I want to do is (cautiously) call BS on something you may or may not have stumbled across today in your usual market-related media scouring. Ever heard of Mo Islam? He's the 17-year-old New York high school senior who allegedly made $72 million over the past several years by day trading the stock market during lunch... at his high school. What lends credibility to the alleged success was that the story ran in New York Magazine, and then was regurgitated by other online financial news sources. There weren't many details as to how - or even if - Islam did the deed, like how much money he started with. A brokerage statement was reportedly seen, however, which apparently was enough vetting for New York Magazine and all the follow-on journalists who also penned commentaries suggesting it had to be true. I'm not buying it. I don't know Mo Islam, but if I had to guess I'd say he's a brilliant kid. Even the most brilliant of 17-year-olds isn't equipped to drive triple-digit annual returns for years on end. One of his friend's responses to a question from Business Insider regarding the matter, though, was cagey enough to cast an even darker shadow of doubt on the matter. Islam's friend said: "We can't just talk about the numbers. It's not just about the money. We're on the verge of a lot of great things in our lives so we can't just focus on providing you the statements. We're on the verge of a lot of great things. We are going to talk to CNBC... All those statements...that's good for you. We know what we're doing. We're managing this whole hype and everything. We are trying to work with it. We were never expecting it and never denied. You have no proof." Huh? While we don't need eloquent poetry from a 17-year-old kid to get a handle on the matter, that's an explicit non-response, which in turn is a big red flag. Why do I care about any of this? A couple of reasons. The first one is, if you happened to see the story elsewhere and felt like your trading wasn't worth pursuing when a 17-year-old student does it so much better than you during his lunchtime, don't give it a second thought. I really don't think it happened, unless the kid started with something already close to his current alleged net worth. The second reason I wanted to bring it up is just because I love the fascinating stories the financial media engine is capable of producing and proliferating. Never let it be said market news isn't interesting, even if it has to be untrue to be interesting. Anyway... Good Stuff We don't have a lot of time or room to belabor this look today, so we'll get straight to it - here are the top four commentaries posted at the website today I think you need to see. If you're looking for a high-risk/high-reward biotech play, James Brumley believes it's getting close to time to play Cytori Therapeutics (CYTX). Last Friday was a big day for "big data" stocks, with three companies from the industry going If you've only got room for one you big data play in your portfolio though, John Udovich can help you pick the top prospect. Speaking of IPOs, Dave & Buster's (PLAY) is about to unveil its first quarterly earnings report as a publicly-traded organization. Peter Graham has some thoughts about what to expect. Last but not least, Bryan Murphy noticed something quite curious - and quite bullish - about Orexigen Therapeutics (OREX) this morning. You've got to see his chart. Want even more trading ideas? I suggest you become a subscriber to our stock-picking alerts, delivered by e-mail and/or as a text message. The SmallCap Network began sending out free trading ideas separately from this newsletter a little over a month ago in order to deliver you more - and more timely - suggestions of mid-sized and large-cap listed equities to consider trading. It's worked out great so far too. We have room to add more subscribers to the stock-picking alert list though. If you want to hit the ground running in 2015, the time to sign up for the alerts is now. You'll be glad you did. Heck, it may just be the best Christmas present you give yourself... not to mention the cheapest (free is about as cheap as it gets). Here's how to sign up, or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/pages/SCNEOL/v1/ The Death Blow Still Hasn't Been Struck, But... Once again the dead-cat bounce was severely short-lived. This time we only got about an hour's worth of bullish action - right at the open - before it all came unraveled and let stocks slide to about a 0.6% loss. At least with last Thursday's dead-cat bounce we got a few decent hours in before stocks pulled back to roughly a breakeven. The ease with which stocks gave up on their rebound and went back into selloff mode is more alarming than the selloff itself... not that we want to see either. I will wouldn't give up on a Santa Claus rally just yet though. Granted, THE ODDS OF A SANTA CLAUS RALLY JUST WORSENED A GREAT DEAL, but we still can't rule it out. The bad news is, the S&P 500 ended up breaking under the potential floor at its 50-day moving average line (purple) at 2001. The good news is, the 100-day moving average line (gray) seems to have stepped up to the plate as a technical floor for the S&P 500. More bad news: The volume behind the selloff is increasing, with today's pullback being the highest volume day we've seen in weeks. More good news: The VIX doesn't seem especially interested or willing to move beyond the key 21.0 level, which tacitly implies the bulls have drawn a mental line in the sand right where stocks stopped falling today. Yes, you could really go either way based on this analysis so far, but there's more to look at to bring clarity to the situation. Here's the NASDAQ Composite. The NASDAQ broke under its near-term floor at 4652, though it still hasn't pulled under its 50-day moving average line (purple) at 4580 (though it's close). And, like the VIX, the VXN isn't acting like it wants to push beyond the 22.0-ish level. So we're in good shape, and ready to take a shot at getting bullish and going long on stocks? All possibilities are still on the table, but I wouldn't be doing you any favors if I didn't show you the red flag the Russell 2000 started to wave today. Thanks to the Russell's 1.05% pullback, the small cap index broke under a floor at 1153 and also closed below its 50-day moving average line. So what's the call? I'm still not into guarantees, but in my opinion, this doesn't look encouraging.... at least in the short run. Indeed, we may already be past the point of no return. I can see the market bouncing briefly again, though at this point I think we have to assume any subsequent bounce is going to be short-lived like the last two have been - as in less than a day. If the pullback following any bounce drives the rest of the indices below their 50-day moving average lines, I've got a feeling that's going to be the point where traders throw in the towel. On the other hand, we don't even have to attempt a dead-cat bounce to get traders to throw in the towel. A bad start on Tuesday could crack the last of the market's lingering support levels, at which time the selloff could accelerate. Just so there's no confusion, I'm still a long-term bull, and I see any dip as a long-term buying opportunity. I'm not interested in taking any lumps I don't have to take though, just to make a point. Timing is still half the battle. My guess is, we'll see another bullish pushback tomorrow, followed by a lower low. This is all looking a heck of a lot like what we saw in early October. Once that train started moving in a bearish direction, it didn't stop until it careened off the track in mid-October. We're seeing something similar unfurl now. For what it's worth, here's the chart of the daily NYSE up/down volume and advancer/decliner data... the raw, daily data. Down volume outpaced up volume by a ratio of 4.3 to 1.0, while decliners outnumbered advancers 3.0 to 1.0. Here's the overlaid chart of the trends (moving averages) of the data above. Those bearish divergences are crystal clear now. Like I mentioned to you already, we may be past the point of no return, with no bottom in sight for a while. If you go back and take a look at what all the data looked like on October 15th - the day the downtrend reversed - this breadth and depth data didn't look all that bad at the time. In fact, the short-term bearish trends up until that point had actually eased up for several leading up to that pivot, signaling a bounce was imminent [see the short colored lines on each portion of the chart right before the October 15th bounce]. We're not seeing any such clue now. All we're seeing now on the raw daily chart of this data is further development of the bearish breadth and depth trends, suggesting we're not close to a bottom yet. We'll keep tabs on this chart for you, along with everything else. Be sure to check back tomorrow.