Did they ring a bell at today's top?

They called it the opening bell, but it had an extra meaning today. As we discussed before the open, this setup tends to reward early action.

After consolidating last night's 10-point reaction to China's rate cut up to 2068.00 high, fresh highs were being probed up to 2071.75 before the open.

That was the end of that.

The opening bar did print 2 ticks higher and neutralized the overnight "new Globex trend extreme." That bar was already reversing down when the second minute bar extended down further -- exactly as depicted during this morning's pre-open Market Tour (first chart image).

That discussion was about separate unique setups. First, the likelihood for expiration's opening gap to be reversed aggressively or else to extend throughout the day. Second and third, two exact behaviors that would determine which path was being followed  And fourth, yesterday's setup that expected a probe of new highs today, and for that probe to fail.

So, the first two bars blipped-up to 2072.25 and blapped-down to unhook from the pre-open sponsorship. The opening 15 minutes of volatility trended down to signal that expiration's session would trend downward. A sell signal calculated at 2069.50 broke lower, and the overnight consolidation's 2062.75 low was just touched.

Being obligatory support, it's not surprising the overnight relative low's retest has produced a 3-point bounce. The market is still well into positive territory, which the noon hour might exploit by extending back up another 3 points.

But the influences we knew at yesterday's close and before today's open haven't changed. The post-open drop has confirmed them. Unless the noon hour has recovered, the balance of the session remains vulnerable to retracing the rest of last night's rally.