Leading Indicators and the 2 p.m. Pin

Typically around 2 p.m. the max pain pin is lifted as most contracts are cleaned up by then, today is a bit of a mystery though with the monkey wrench thrown in earlier today.

Intraday charts are holding their ground, not adding any really strong intraday divergences so far, but more or less halting any further serious decline for the moment. The overall trend since the bounce started hasn't changed much either.

For example...

 IWM intraday leading positive divegrence has halted downside and put a lateral consolidation in to place.

I believe the latest is there are high level talks between Ukraine and Russia scheduled for Sunday which may put investors minds at ease over weekend escalations.

The Custom SPY/TICK Indicator shows the immediate drop off on the Ukraine shelling news and a gradual improvement in TICK, there's a slight deterioration which shouldn't surprise me to see a pullback to intraday lows, that's where we'd get a good sense of whether they were accumulated for a continued move higher or whether they deteriorated.

 HYG is still leading the market, but apart from the Ukraine situation, the internals/3C charts here yesterday were already falling apart fast hinting the bounce is in the end stages.

HY Credit which has also been supportive and making higher highs/higher lows with the market this week saw a move lower this morning,  this was BEFORE the Ukraine news broke, so I suspect that this is another sign the bounce is losing it's legs, but likely not quite over.

What is interesting is our professional sentiment indicators just started flying intraday, it looks like pros are stepping back in the market and this may be due to the Ukraine/Russian meeting Sunday, taking some of the unknown off the table at least for the weekend.

At the same time, unrelated (largely) to Ukraine as this is a trend in place before, yields are leading the market lower and sooner or later stocks tend to revert to yields so while some new lows were hit on the Ukraine news, the trend has been in place, also suggesting we are getting close to the end of the bounce.

I would not consider this an end point as of yet, but I think the trend that has been in place all week is starting to take on a more serious posture.

As for the 10-15 min positives, not much has changed there. Remember the idea is to sell/short in to higher prices and today didn't offer that opportunity so right now I think we are close to the end of the bounce, but I don't think we are at the pivot just yet.