Emerge or Diverge

Working our way through the early-afternoon portion of today's session, stocks continue to sport a notable divergence, with small caps holding green and not far from an attractive upside breakout above $169/$170 (seem on the IWM ETF daily chart, below), while the Dow is struggling to hold bounces and is down triple-digits as the Nasdaq softens, too. In addition, the S&P 500 Index is probing the 2,800 prior breakout level from earlier this week. 

That said, the retail and homebuilder strength is noteworthy, as well as some standouts in energy and assorted other parts of the market like Square, a major payments leader. 

Our main focus is on objectively gauging whether sellers feel emboldened from today's dip and buyers become frustrated by the sputtering momentum (i.e. stocks not surging every single day in unison), thereby leading to a more meaningful change in market character.

For now, though, today's action smacks of some rangebound probing of levels on the indices while bulls continue to play the rotation game. 

More in my usual Midday Video for Members.