Proximity to rate hikes reflected upon by a couple of Fed Presidents, didn’t halt the midday selling reprieve, which suggests (no surprise) traders are trying very hard to deter an approach to the ‘edge of a precipice’, which is fairly obvious just by noting levels from which every recent bounce of significance has occurred.

Technically the market bounced right from where it needed too (take a look at the S&P daily-basis chart or the video). Additionally we indeed got the expected late fade, and a set-up for more downward action on Friday.

This evening we’ll let the charts and video tell the story; plus a few comments in the second video about Apple (AAPL), which continues softening as projected; and that is besides our expectation they will have a marvelous iPhone redesign, but not until later in 2017 (their 10th Anniversary model incidentally).

After the close Thursday, Nordstrom (JWN) reported and ‘missed’; which should not be a surprise to any who recognize the pressures the retail market has witnessed, and is not merely everyone traipsing off to Amazon (AMZN) instead of brick and mortar. Of course that’s part of it; but generally people are spending more on technology and a bit on entertainment, and less on clothing, or least high-priced clothing.

It’s been quite a while since I mentioned the growing threat from style-conscious lower-end merchants, when first discovering stores like H&M and Forever21 and Zara in Europe (before they hit many malls around America) –  the terribly cheap (often poor quality materials, moreso for the first two than for Zara) imitation or sometimes original designs, which were affordable for kids, who do set trends.

I noted for decades how outsourcing was destroying high-end manufacturing by Americans and even Europeans, but it was these stylish-yet-cheaper retailers of course that creamed mainstream retailers, because kids don’t care much about the goods’ quality, if it’s stylish. They’ll just toss it and buy new next season and for that matter they don’t want anything that really has fashion longevity.