We can actually not answer the question posed above with certainty. We don’t know for sure whether the recent market decline was a “warning shot” or merely a short term shake-out. In this we are in good company: the whole world doesn’t know.
However, our guess at this juncture is that the decline was of the “warning shot” variety, as it has violated long-standing uptrend support lines – something that the market has managed to avoid in previous corrections over the past three years. There are also fundamental reasons for thinking so, which we discuss briefly further below. However, based on fundamentals alone, it cannot be determined whether the stock market is already “ripe” for a larger degree decline, or whether its uptrend will resume in the short/medium term.
To be sure, the technical picture certainly conveys no certainties about the future either. However, should the market peak at a “typical” retracement level or at a previous lateral support level (thereby confirming its new status as resistance) and resume its decline from a lower high, yet another change in character will be recorded. In that case, the probability that a larger degree decline is underway would accordingly increase further.
Below are charts of the most important indexes showing Fibonacci retracement levels of the recent correction and lateral resistance levels. Although it is unknowable why the market often finds support or runs into resistance at Fibonacci retracement levels (there is certainly no logical reason for this), it has happened quite often in the past, so it is useful to be aware of them. Possibly it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because so many traders use technical analysis nowadays
