Happy Columbus Day, one and all. Although banks were closed in observation of the explorer's arrival in the Americas, the stock market (obviously) didn't shut down. And, maybe it's a good thing it didn't. We've been searching for a trade-worthy bottom lately and we may have found it today. Just for the sake of simplicity, I just want to come right out and explain what I expect from stocks next, and then illustrate how I came to that conclusion. While I usually do things the other way around for you, this time, it'll all make a lot more sense if you know where I'm coming from. Here's the deal: After three days of harsh selling (we're down 4.8% for the past three sessions), I believe we're due for a bounce. This bounce will not necessarily be the beginning of a longer-term recovery. It will just be enough to burn off the extreme oversold condition. It's unlikely the brewing bounce will even be able to get the S&P 500 back above the 1970 area, where several key moving average lines have converged and are now making for one mean ceiling. After the next stumble and move to new lows, that's likely to be "the" low that sets up the year-end strength we usually see. In other words, things have been so bad lately, it's actually good.... at least in the near-term. To give credit where it's due, I'm borrowing a lot of my perspective from John Monroe, who pens even more perspective every single day in the Elite Opportunity newsletter. All of his commentary today was his usual helpful stuff, but one snippet really stuck out to me. John wrote: "There's no question the markets are extremely oversold right now, so assuming we achieve the XXX [removed by editor] level on the NDX, without any sort of major relief rally beforehand, I suspect roughly around that level may offer some excellent risk/reward in anticipation of a reversal in tech and other previously high flying momentum type names." The part of his explanation that really stuck in my craw was "without any sort of major relief rally beforehand". What he meant was, perhaps more important than where the market goes is how it gets there. Had the market bounced a little today and/or a little tomorrow, it might set up a wave of profit-taking which would carry the market to lows even lower than today's lows. Instead today was something of a blowout which in itself acted as a near-term capitulation. I've said it before and I'll say it again - the market does a lousy job of pacing itself. Sometimes though, the market's inability to pace itself works in your favor.... kind of like now. Whatever the case, there's something of an X-factor in play here too that suggests we've yet to hit the ultimate bottom and are only looking for a short-term bullish swing. We only talk about it on occasion because it's tough to embrace the ambiguous, touchy-feely stuff. We have to talk a little about it now, however, because of the situation. As ugly and painful as the past three trading days have been, I don't think it's a major, pivotal bottom yet because the market and all of its participants aren't freaked out yet. They're a little annoyed, perhaps, but they're still relatively confident the market is going to quickly recover from here. That's usually not how bottoms form. Most real bottoms materialize when confidence has been shattered and the majority of traders are convinced stocks can only go lower for the foreseeable future. That's not what we have yet. One more good plunge, however, should do the trick. The bullishness we're likely to see in the meantime is just apt to be a dead-cat bounce. (There are some clues on obscure charts that can suggest this touchy-feely pessimism has fully developed. We'll start looking at those clues tomorrow.) Yes, this is an aggravating scenario. Welcome to the market. Whatever the case, we're still viewing whatever short-term weakness is in our cards as a major long-term buying opportunity. Honestly, I've only scratched the surface of all the ifs, thens, and buts that matter right now. It's also pretty clear from today's action [remember, there was a glimmer of hope for a bounce at mid-day on Monday] that something else Monroe mentioned in the EO newsletter today is uber-important here. He said: "It's extremely important for short-term traders and even long-term investors to pay close attention to what happens with the major indices as soon as today because based on the way these markets have been behaving, if you walk away from your screens for too long, you just may miss a key pivotal bottom." He's exactly right too. Whether you're a short-term trader or a long-term investor, right now - in this environment - what's happening on an intraday basis is important stuff. If you're not keeping close intraday tabs on stocks in search of the big turning point, you're taking on a huge risk. Your best shot at spotting the ultimate bottom and subsequent pivot the moment it happens is with a subscription to the Elite Opportunity service. Here's how to get a free two week trial . Or, cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/?vmpd_ckstr[click_track]=Newsletter&vmpd_ckstr_redirect=/pages/SCNEO/v1 From the Site Here's our homage to Christopher Columbus - we got a boatload of great commentary posted at the website today. Here's the best of the best. Were you mulling a stake in Dave & Busters (PLAY), which only went public late last week? If you want to know more about the company and its peers, John Udovich took a look and compared it to other companies in a similar space right here. There's no denying many Ebola-related stocks are well overbought and would be dangerous to buy at this point. James Brumley found one, however, that still has more upside in front of it than behind it. The trick will be finding an entry point. Last but not least, we're not the only ones analyzing the broad market on a regular basis. Dr. John L. Faessel's "On the Market" is a pretty regular column at the site. He's looking for more downside too, but he's got some different reasons why. If you want a ton of information in a tiny amount of space, Dr. Faessel is your guy. That's all this time around, friends. Talk to you Tuesday.