This may be the most maddening market I've seen in a long, long time. Seriously. I've been involved in the market one way or another for close to two decades now, and though I have seen more indecisive, wishy-washy action, I've not seen it that often, and it's not been that much more convictionless than what we're seeing right now. Maddening. But, we have to trod on, knowing a big, trade-worthy move is coming sooner or later. And yes, I continue to lean bearishly. So what was so frustrating about today's action? Don't misunderstand. We got some of the key bearish clues we've been waiting on for a while. But, how we got them isn't as convincing as we'd normally like to see. Take, for instance, the daily chart of the S&P 500 below... the one we primarily look at. It finally ended up closing below the pivotal 20-day moving average line (at 1955) with today's close of 1942.74. But, as the closing bell approached, the S&P 500 was also pushing up and off of its low of 1929.22 for the day. Considering how important this technical breakdown was - or was supposed to be - it didn't seem to spook too many people. If you look closely at the VIX you'll also see it hit a ceiling and peeled back from it, which is indirectly bullish for stocks. That ceiling? Its 20-day moving average line, which is also a key make-or-break line in the sand for the volatility index. If the VIX can't move any higher, the S&P 500 is going to have a tough time moving any lower. Like I said, don't get the wrong idea - the market's close below the 20-day line is alarming, especially since today's move lower has pulled the index well below a rising support line (dashed). From here, there's a little room for the S&P 500 to keep falling. And, there's a reason for it to keep falling. It's not a great reason though, and even if it does, the index's lower Bollinger band is now ready to try and catch in pullback pretty quickly before it gets going in earnest. As much as the S&P 500 moved up and off its lows for the day, the NASDAQ Composite did it even more so. In fact, the composite almost managed to crawl back above its 20-day moving average line today, which would have created a real pickle. Again, I can't stress enough the bigger short-trend is bearish... a trend that actually extends back to the reversal bar from the 17th. This is not the strong start to a capitulatory move I was hoping for, though. In any case, with as much indecision as the daily charts have been dishing out lately, I think today's as good of a time as any to give you an updated look at the key weekly charts. They put my pessimism in the proper perspective. Here's the weekly version of the NASDAQ Composite. All of a sudden last week's reversal bar and follow-through to the downside look much more decisive. In fact, though I still don't want to say the NASDAQ has fallen back below a major rising support line (red, dashed), it's clearly knocking on the door again. One more lower low could break that floor, and like we said last week, I don't see traders being as quick to step in again as they were four weeks ago. You can also see the VXN on the weekly chart is finding a floor to push up and off of, working on a renewed uptrend. Here's the weekly chart of the S&P 500. In this timeframe it looks like it's under far more bearish pressure than it does on the daily chart. With the exception of last week's short-lived high, we're seeing a streak of lower highs even after a huge stumble five weeks ago. In fact, we're well under the low from that big stumble five weeks ago. So.... yeah. We continue to lean on the bearish side of the fence. Whatever the case, we mentioned on Monday the "how" and the "when" the market makes a bottom in the foreseeable future may be as important as the "where." While I never blindly trade calendar-based tendencies, I'm not crazy enough to ignore the fact that the last two and a half to three months of the year are generally bullish for stocks no matter what. Valuation only has little to do with it, good or bad. It's just one of those things that's become so reliable, you have to respect it. I say the last two and a half to three month of the year to make it clear stocks may not hit a major bottom until the middle of October or so, but they can hit a key bottom as early as late September. Well, folks, we're pretty darn near late September. While the ingredients for a significant correction are still in place, we clearly don't have a new low in place yet. We've got about three weeks to make it. I bring it up now to explain that one way or another, by mid-October the market is going to take off on way or another. It's just a question of where it starts the year-end rally. If a year-end rally starts following a steep and final capitulatory pullback, that'll mean the rally is going to be a big one, with a big chunk of it just being a recovery of the ground that was lost in the meantime. If instead we reach mid-October and we've yet to see any major corrective move, we'll still likely get a Q4 rally, but it won't be a big one. It may barely be trade-worthy, given the market's frothy P/E levels this time around. Just something to keep in mind as you're making plans for a strong finish to the trading year. Oh, and just to show you I'm not simply assuming there's usually a Q4 rally, here's an aggregate performance of the S&P 500 going back the past 25 years. The thicker white line in the middle is the average. I've marked the pre-rally low with an arrow. On average, the low is hit on October 11th. After that it's usually quite bullish. As far as near-term downside targets go from here, well, once again a lot of that has to do with how the market moves lower between now and mid-October. The odds of it gradually drifting to new lows are pretty slim. If new lows are in the cards, stocks are probably going to have to get there via two or three days of sharply violent tumbles. The antithesis of this idea is also true. That is, if new lows are not in the cards, I doubt we'll see any major one-day implosions. The indices are more likely to simply grind a little lower and then slowly transition into a new uptrend. Either way, I'm probably not going to talk specific downside targets for the broad market here in the newsletter. John Monroe over at the Elite Opportunity has a much better bead on the market's most plausible downsides for each scenario I described above, so I'll just recommend using him as your guide to all-things-trading related. In fact, if you're serious at all about finding the exact capitulatory bottom as it's happening, I strongly recommend becoming an EO member. His is delivered in the middle of the trading day while it's still actionable. The best we'd be able to point out to you here with the free end-of-day newsletter is that "the" bottom was in the rear-view mirror from a few hours earlier. Here's how to get the Elite Opportunity newsletter, or just cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/pages/SCNEO/v1/