The markets traded up strongly almost all day. The "almost" raises the question of whether this really was the break-out everyone was expecting to signal resumption of the bull market. SPX closed at $1848, up $11, and RUT gained $10 to close at $1175.  SPX traded up all morning, hit its high for the day at $1859 around noon ET, and then slowly declined in the afternoon. But the last half hour of trading was tough, slicing $8 off of the index. RUT behaved similarly, hitting a high of $1180, but closing down $5 from the high. Neither SPX or RUT are displaying a textbook shooting star candlestick, but they certainly have the essence of the shooting star with a strong bullish run higher, ending with the bears pulling the price back down. Trading volume was higher today with 2.8 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading volume rose 10% on the NYSE and rose a tepid 1% on NASDAQ.

I look to higher than average trading volume to confirm whatever price move occurred. Today's action is not so clear. Does the increased volume underscore the strong move higher or the pull back late in the day? The one thing that is clear is that this wasn't the clean break-out higher that bullish analysts were wanting to see.

There wasn't any significant economic news propelling this bullish run today, so one has to wonder what tomorrow will bring? At least for the last half hour today, the bears were making their case. But one has to give the benefit of the doubt to the bulls. After all, they have driven this market all the way back from the 6% correction on February 5th in only 12 trading days!