Swing trades can look to trade a break of the day's high/lows, with a stop on the flip side. But momentum is with the bulls, so any short-side break could be short-lived.

A surprising show of strength after three days of gains.

It was relatively low key, but the Nasdaq and Nasdaq 100 were able to post a third day of gains yesterday.

Buyers are relieved to have seen a second, decent day of gains following the losses at the start of the week. Volume just about registered an accumulation day, although there is perhaps some concern the buying of the last two days has come on lighter volume than the selling which took indices to these lows.

Yesterday was a relatively easy day for bulls. The decline had created a bit of a vacuum, which the subsequent rallies happily filled.

It was looking a little worrisome for the Russell 2000 after sellers pushed the index below Monday's lows in early action. The index gave back some of the recovered gains by the close, but not enough to reverse what amounted to a bullish hammer.

After Monday's action, it was no surprise to see markets claw back a small amount of those losses. Buying volume dropped, a trend which has been apparent since the failure of the S&P to break above 1,850. Technicals in the S&P are oversold.

The battle between bulls and bears finally resolves itself in favor of bears. The end result differed by index, with some performing 'better' than others. Bad economic data was blamed for the fall.

One should give the edge to support - for now - but trading volume has consistently picked up in favor of distribution on days the market has closed lower.

It proved to be a tough day for bulls. Shorts are unlikely to have been the cause of today's losses, although some may not have wasted time jumping on board.

Tuesday's halt of the decline didn't stick, but Thursday's buying looks to have more metal behind it.

Bulls should have some wiggle room here. Shorts won't like the risk:reward until a rally takes the indices back to 20-day MAs. Until then, bulls can probably be fairly aggressive for the next couple of days.

It was another round of losses in what proved to be a not-so-quiet Monday. Even with the losses, the index best set for a recovery is the Russell 2000.

It has been a long time since bears have had much influence as they had on Friday. Breakdowns abound, and areas of overhead supply were created where before there was none.

It was billed as a slump, but markets experienced losses well within their bullish boundaries.

Since the New Year rolled in it has been semiconductors which have done most of the leg work for this rally: a solid 1% gain following last week's breakout is just the tonic for a technology rally.