For the first time in months, sentiment is becoming equal between "smart money" and "dumb money" indicators. When that happens and stocks are still in longer-term downtrends, it has tended to lead to poor returns. The biggest caveat to that is if buyers persist shorter-term, it has indicated powerful longer-term recoveries.; Over the past 3 days, the Equity-only Put/Call Ratio has been below 0.5, meaning options traders turned over half has many puts as calls, typically a sign of optimism. Stocks have struggled when the ratio was this low over a 3-day period, and it hasn't happened since 2002 when the S&P 500 was below its 200-day average.

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