For today's Mid-Day Minute, Mike writes: As we head into the afternoon session, let's notice that today represents (potentially) the third consecutive up-day off of last Wednesday's low at 1168.75. Let's be aware that as of this moment, the E-mini S&P is above last week's low by about 11 points, which to my mind, is not a very impressive performace in the aftermath of a 65-point, 3-week decline from a supposedly very oversold condition. Now maybe the index will rocket later today into the 1190 area, which will make this recovery a bit more impressive. But for the time being, if I were a bull, I would be thinking that this rally is lacking umph, and at some point will reverse sharply to continue the dominant March downtrend.

MJP 03/28/05 1:00 PM ET (1180.50)

Mike Paulenoff is a 25-year veteran of the financial markets and author of MPTrader.com, a real-time diary of his E-mini S&P and QQQQ technical analysis and trading alerts. For more of Mike Paulenoff, sign up for a FREE 30-Day Trial to his E-Mini/Index Futures diary, or try his QQQ Trading Diary.