Today's Update:  We will move back to Neutral if the S&P 500 e-mini futures rally more than 5 points from their lowest level from here (currently 1052.50).

Why:  Yesterday's session did what it was "supposed" to do by relieving most of the oversold conditions in our shortest-term guides, snapping back from Friday's large loss and the 95% down volume day.  The topics we've discussed over the past couple of days have been most effective in the very short-term, and the market has followed through on them as it should have, but now we're left without really any edge from them, and I cannot find one new thing after yesterday's session.  We still have the positives we discussed in early July to consider, and while we certainly saw a meaningful rally from those conditions, a two-week spurt would be unusually short given some of the readings we saw then.  So it seems most likely that we'll get another rally attempt, and not just roll right over like we did in June.  Given that likelihood, and the lack of new, consistent short-term extremes among the guides we follow, we're going to move back to Neutral with any rally greater than 5 points in the futures from here.  They've already dipped under 1053 so far this morning.

Today's Update:  We will remain Neutral for now.

Why:  On April 15th, the Dumb Money pushed up to 75%, and the spread between that and the Smart Money reached to -45%.  In addition, we got a tremendous surge in the number of bearish (for the market) Indicators At Extremes.  After we got the expected weakness and volatility exploded higher, we experienced a very unusual situation with the "shock day" on May 6th.  We looked at somewhat similar days on May 7th, and the conclusions were clear - a short-term rally was likely, probably being capped at a 62% retracement of the crash, then a re-test of the panic lows.   In late May, we looked at quite a few  bullish intermediate-term studies - we got a major surge in pessimism, then several positive breadth thrusts and positive price performance, all in the context of an ongoing bull market.  After a brief respite, June 4th's Payroll Report kneecapped the rally attempt and took us to a new closing low.  In the process, we've seen very oversold conditions and some give-up among Rydex traders and individual investors, so we'll be looking for the price action to improve to re-establish a bullish outlook.  That would include either a successful test of the recent lows, or a recovery high above 1120 to break the recent pattern of lower highs and lower lows in the S&P 500.