Many of the markers of selling exhaustion that appear when stocks are at a bottom have been absent so far. With the market and the economy at a critical moment of heightened uncertainty, that leaves a wide distribution of possible outcomes.
Absence of evidence can sometimes mean evidence of absence. When Sherlock Holmes solved the disappearance of a famous race horse, the pivotal clue was a dog that didn’t bark. There are several market dogs that are not barking today. Measures of stock-market breadth have not hit extremes typically seen at market bottoms, an ominous sign that further price declines may be in store.
