As I went through my chart review this past weekend, the first thing I thought of was, “Is it possible last Wednesday’s 1.8% drop in the S&P 500 was just a one-day correction – designed to shake out weak bulls, and get overly aggressive bears to make big downside bets just before the market blasts higher one more time?” After all, most of the technical momentum indicators never reached extremely overbought conditions. We never got a breakdown in traditional leading sectors like high-yield bonds and semiconductor stocks. And technical conditions quickly reached oversold conditions on Wednesday’s decline – which is why I advised my Delta Report subscribers NOT to add short positions into the decline.

Happy option expiration day. Longtime readers know I’m not a fan of establishing new trades on a Friday, right in front of a weekend. I’m even less a fan of trading on option expiration day. The potential for “funny business” is too great. So, instead of writing about the technical condition of the stock market today, let’s open up the mailbag and see what sort of comments were inspired by this week’s volatility. But first… a little background…

We’ve been looking for the stock market to make a significant, intermediate-term top sometime soon. Up until yesterday, though, the market hasn’t done anything to suggest a top was in place. High-yield bonds and semiconductor stocks – two market-leading sectors – have been holding up well. Most technical indicators remained in “neutral” territory, with plenty of room to push higher before getting overbought. And the S&P 500 continued to trade above the support of its 9-day exponential moving average (EMA) line.

Today marks the end of the seasonally strong period for stock prices. Starting next week, the winds shift bearish. That doesn’t mean stocks are going to start falling right away. But it is going to make it more difficult for the market to rally. The S&P 500 still hasn’t made it up to my 2411 minimum upside target. The index got as high as 2404 this month. Perhaps today will be the day. But the bulls are running out of time. Here in the Market Minute, we take a look at the setups in the broad market and plan for the trading day ahead.

This is a dangerous situation. It’s not obvious. Major turning points in the financial markets rarely are. Nobody rings a bell at the top of a bull market, right? But Quasimodo is hanging out in the high-yield-bond bell tower. And he’s just about ready to pull on the rope.

Now that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting is out of the way, traders can shift their attention to the French election this weekend. The bulls are quickly running out of time to make their move. The seasonal winds blow bullish until about mid-month. Then the seasonal patterns turn bearish.

On Tuesday, the stock market gave us a carbon copy of Monday’s action. The S&P 500 was stuck in a tight trading range, with a slight upside bias. Today we have the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcement at about 2:00 p.m. ET. Nobody expects the FOMC to do anything about interest rates today. But traders will be looking for confirmation, or not, of a potential June rate hike.

The first trading day of May is typically a bullish day for the market. The S&P closes higher something like 70% of the time, and the average gain is around 0.5%. Most of the technical indicators are now back in neutral territory. So there’s room for them to move higher before getting overbought.

Today is option expiration day. So in addition to the regular amount of computer-driven trading programs that influence the market action, we’re also likely to see some influence from computer programs designed to squeeze as much profit as possible out of expiring option positions.