Blacking-out data in China, is not really the heart of market drama here. It's a combination of factors, ranging from 'good news is bad news' responses to a stronger-than-consensus Retail sales number.

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That's entirely independent of China's yield moves or their suppression of 'youth unemployment', which is basically trying to mask the jobless situation in their country from their people.

Essentially this is merely the continuation of the corrective August-September phase of S&P correction and retreat, led sporadically by the former high-flying mega-cap leaders. It's rotational, it's not always across markets broadly, and it is a process. Currently it's related to failing rebounds under the S&P 50 Day Moving Average and again it's a process anticipated once the rebound called for from mid-June into mid-July ended, after being stretched just a bit more.

Very little occurred new (retail and China are discussion points), as an overall failure of intraweek rebound was probable. Hence we wanted to see a bounce, but believe action would be unsustainable, even before the attempt was made.

It's a tricky market for Wall Street, because they want to find 'some likeable' or investible stocks. That's tough when 'cash' gets a higher return these days, at the same time all that squirreling into Treasuries creates future buying power. It is impossible at this time to pinpoint when the market craters sufficiently that is really a low-risk entry point for major stocks, but it's likely shouldn't be yet.

In-sum: 

The roller-coaster process of August-September decline continues. For sure one can attribute hourly action here-or-there to news, like Retail Sale levels or Chinese events, or even Oil price movements. Yes, but the outcome should sill be the same, whether or not you get intervening periods of respite.

We may well see some sort of 'Hail Mary' rebound attempts in S&P, based on a news story (domestic or international) yet to be heard. However, the should not obviate the prospects of S&P working lower for awhile longer, while surely open-minded if something significant changes.

Basically this is the same process we've talked about for two months evolving after mid July, so it's frustrating where you'd like to see better action in at least a few stocks, and you may get that, but generally the backdrop mood doesn't contribute to sustainable moves.

Big-tech is not merely the issue either. Actually if Apple (AAPL) hadn't held together today, S&P would have been hit even more. Notice mediocre Semiconductor (SMH) behavior again, and also Tesla (TSLA) getting hit (after they cut price $10,000 on the entry premium level S model).

China also reverberated through the markets, while Fitch warned on Banks in the wake of Moody's doing that after Fitch warned on the U.S. itself. This sort of jockeying for leading 'critique of the week' doesn't help the mood either. But really it's August, attention isn't focused on markets, borrowing costs are high and somehow media tells us people are still spending. I think awareness of a now-aggressive series of rate increases, and it reaching consumers, is clear.

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