I was leading a private coaching session this morning and missed the first couple of hours of market activity. Then I checked the indexes on my phone and saw nothing but green. Cool. That hammer candlestick on RUT yesterday was prophetic. But all of that changed over the course of the afternoon. SPX traded as high as $1889 but then declined to $1870 before recovering somewhat to close down $3 at $1876. RUT traded in a similar pattern, but weaker than SPX, to close at $1097, down $11. Volatility remained flat with the VIX unchanged at 13.4%. Trading volume fell off from yesterday with 2.1 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading; volume declined 8% on the NYSE and dropped off only 1% on NASDAQ.

So the same story we have been watching for several weeks continued today: SPX is trading sideways in a tight range just above the 50 dma, while RUT flirts with its 200 dma. It appears the rotation out of high tech and small caps into safer blue chips is continuing. The fact that SPX has held up so well seems to counter any predictions of a market crash scenario. The low levels of VIX reinforce SPX's relative stability. But RUT and the NASDAQ composite remain weak.

Is this the sideways to weak trend we will have to live with this summer? Is this the "Sell in May" trend?