Did we just see the proverbial kiss of death? OK, “death” might be a bit of a strong word, though “extreme frustration” wouldn't mischaracterize what the market has been doing, and still is doing. Just when it looks like stocks might ready to make a meaningful move, something gets in the way.

We can't count on that, however.

There are several reasons for our doubt, one of which is Tuesday's bar. It completely engulfed, and reversed Monday's bullishness; the downside follow-through on Wednesday was the clincher. The other concern is that once again we saw fading volume on the way up, but we saw growing volume on the way down with Tuesday's and Wednesday's losses.

It's not just the total volume we saw on Tuesday and Wednesday, however. We also know that the bearish volume (the amount of trading activity in stocks that ultimately lost ground on Wednesday) was far and away greater than the amount of bullish volume we saw.