While it might be overdoing it to call Wednesday an ironclad game-changer for the market, it's not too soon to start entertaining the possibility that a long-overdue pullback has begun. Both the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 put some serious pressure on major technical - and last-ditch - floors today. There's still a smidgen of a chance the market could bring itself back from the brink of a meltdown, but there's little doubt stocks are hanging by a thread here. SmallCap Network's Premium Advice - Elite Opportunity Actionable short and long-term NASDAQ and NYSE stocks poised for index average beating returns. Experienced daily in-depth analysis of major indices and their ETF's for short-term trading profits. Earnings options plays. Pinpoint analysis for trading precious metals and oil. Currency, bonds and much more! Get in the know now by getting on-the-ground trading and investing advice to make you more money. 30-Day Money Back Guarantee. Click Here and Sign-Up Today! We'll take a good look at exactly what's going on in a moment. There's something else we want to get out of the way first that I probably should have taken care of last Friday. Better late than never, I suppose. We also want to take a quick look at the U.S. dollar, which as you may know went from bad to worse today. In fact, let's start there. U.S. Dollar Now Can't Win For Losing We're still going to have a deeper conversation about this later on, but we just had to show you an updated chart of the U.S. Dollar Index after today's meltdown. If there was any doubt the greenback was in near-term trouble, today's selloff should have wiped it away. To the extent it matters, the gray line on the chart is the 100-day moving average line. It's also not difficult to see the 94.4 area was a point of contention in February, establishing a triangle pattern that ultimately led to a big thrusting move. It's still apt to be a battleground area though, even if on the dollar's way down now. It's not surprising to see the downtrend interrupted here. I'm not even so sure the dollar has cleanly broken under this floor yet. Like we said, we've got a bigger discussion of the dollar in the lineup, which will include downside targets. Stay tuned for that. Sell in May and Go Away? It seems like we go through this exercise every year, but that's ok - it's worth knowing the truth. It's an exercise that may prove especially fruitful this year, however, since the so-called "common knowledge" wisdom might (by sheer dumb luck) be worth heeding. What am a talking about? The whole idea of selling your stocks in May and going away until November, when the market is supposed to turn bullish again following a lethargic six months for stocks. The basic logic behind 'Sell in May and go away' makes sense, in that on average these are collectively the least productive continuous six months of the year. On average, the May-October phase yields a measly 0.6%. Based on that figure alone, the adage is correct - the next six months aren't worth the trouble. There's an inherent flaw in the logic, however. That flaw is, it assumes every month of the next six months is going to be an average month, AND it assumes every year is going to be the same as the overall average year. As trading veterans can attest, though, the market loves to throw curveballs. Since we have the time, willingness, and ability to do so, we went back and crunched the numbers regarding this slowest six months for the year. We're not talking about the average for each individual month. We're talking about the S&P 500's average return for this entire six month stretch, calculated for each of the past 30 years. The results we found might make you change your mind about blindly selling in May and going away. First things first. On average, the S&P 500 typically loses 1.7% when adding up the total average returns for the six-month span of the year that just began last week. For some investors that data alone may be all they need to know about May through October. There's a surprising twist to this tale though. While the average summarized move for the entire six-month period may be a 1.7% loss, also on average over the past 30 years, the S&P 500 has only lost ground in nine of those years. The other 21 years it made some sort of bullish progress. It gets crazier. While the averages would suggest moderate movement every month between May and October (leading to moderate changes overall for the six months in question), there's rarely anything modest or moderate about the time period. See, the average loss for those nine times the May-through-October span was a loser over the past thirty years was big -10.5%. The average winner for the 21 out of 30 times the S&P 500 made a gain between May and October was a whopping +7.0%. Only seven times out of the past thirty years did the gain in the six-month span in question dish out a modest move between -1.6% and +2.1%. Conclusions? The so-called "slowest six months of the year" are usually anything but slow, as a whole. More often than not, they're bullish and more often than not, they're actually quite significant in terms of movement. That's the problem with simple averages and off-the-cuff inferences... they can bury significant truths. There's another noteworthy nuance we noticed in the data. Although we don't show it here, we found it interesting how the nine losing "slowest six months" years of the last thirty were (in order of size of loss, from biggest to smallest) 2008, 2002, 2001, 1997, 1990, 2011, 2000, 1998, and 2010. Most of you will recognize most of those as years we were already in a bear market. Ergo, it wouldn't be crazy to conclude the May-through-October period can easily magnify an already-bad situation. On the flipside, the best May-through-October returns for the past thirty years occurred in (again, from best to least-big) 2009, 2003, 1997, 1995, 2013, 1989, and 1996. Those were all big bull market years. We can once again conclude the right environment leads to strong mid-year gains. As for what it means to you and me in 2015, while we're still in a bull market, we're past due for a major setback. If it's going to happen, history says it could easily happen between now and October, as the next six months are generally collectively volatile rather than involatile despite what "common knowledge" implies. All of a sudden today's weakness has you nervous, huh? Speaking of... Crack! That cracking sound you heard today was the market's floor starting to break. It may not actually buckle and send stocks tumbling, but I'm not sure I want to be the guinea pig to put the matter to the test. And make no mistake - things could still go either way from here. The S&P 500 finished the day right at that critical support level currently at 2080, and closed just a tad above its lower Bollinger band, after moving below both on Wednesday (on in intraday basis). It's actually the most significant technical damage we've suffered in weeks, despite the partial rebound. This is it. By that, we just mean if the bears are going to regain control, this is where and how it should happen. This isn't to say it's going to happen immediately; it could take two or three days for the wrestling match to be decided. The possible end to all the silly gyrating is within sight though, and it's looking like it will end with the development of a new bearish swing, with the VIX making a pretty strong move above its key moving average lines and the selling volume still plenty strong. But, we're never going to say never. Here's the weekly chart of the S&P 500. It doesn't tell us anything new, but it offers us some more perspective on why the long-term support line is such a big deal. We can also better see how the VIX is starting to test the waters of higher highs in this timeframe. From here, now it's just a matter of waiting. While I've got some downside targets in mind, there's no point in talking about them until we clearly have a reason to. Stick around though. These kinds of situations are the kind of scenario that can turn good years for a portfolio into a bad one, and vice versa.