Risk Level:  5

Summary:  The new week started off on an ugly foot, with U.S. stocks following overseas markets lower, and drifting down even more as the day progressed.

Buyers stepped in during the last hour, igniting a furious rally in the closing hour.

It was an unusually strong late-day rally coming on the heels of what had been a poor day up to that point.  While it looks nice, these late-day rallies haven't been a great reversal sign.

Since 1998, there have been 9 other times that the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) was down at least -1% then rallied at least +1% during the final hour to close up on the day.

By the end of the first half-hour the next day, SPY was positive only twice, and finished the next day higher also twice, averaging a return of -1.7%.  Even a week later, SPY was only positive 3 times, and averaged a return of -0.4%.

As we touched on last week, from a seasonal perspective this is buyers' best hope for at least a short-term reversal to stick.  After this week, the monthly pattern for September turns quite negative once again.

I'm still trying to catch up on the data we normally watch, but still can't see much of an edge here either way.  Yesterday's rally looks good, but as we saw above these late-day reversals haven't been very reliable indicators for bulls.  Our indicators remain mixed to neutral, and aren't much help here either.

NOTE:  For those wondering how my Ironman triathlon went this past weekend the short answer is...not good (again).

Similar to last year, the weather was extremely warm.  I'm large (6'7", 192 lbs) and throw off massive amounts of heat, so warm conditions are very difficult for me.

My swim was curiously slow, but the bike was fine.  I paid special attention to my hydration, and felt as though I made all the right decisions as the day progressed.

I started feeling "off" at about mile 4 of the marathon, and by mile 8 I was heaving.  I couldn't keep anything down, no matter what I tried, and I tried everything .  By mile 11, I started becoming extremely dizzy and ended up collapsing at 11.5.  A nurse came over, asked me a few questions, then said she was calling the medic and pulling the timing chip (meaning I was taken out of the race).

It turns out that I lost 21.5 lbs during the course of the day, and had extremely low blood pressure.  They hooked me up to an IV immediately and put in 3 liters of fluid.  I was feeling much better within 45 minutes and was wishing I could put my chip back on to finish the damn thing, but that's not the way things work.

Risk Level:  2