On March 6, just 11 trading sessions ago, the S&P 500 hit a low of 666.71. Since then, six of nine sessions have been up and the index has risen more than 20%.

The SPX has penetrated the 20-day moving average and the first island of resistance at 742 to 780, and yesterday when hitting 803.24, it entered the first serious zone of overhead at 800 to 820.

But technically, and as a result of the huge percentage gain, virtually every internal indicator is now overbought.

I confess to being surprised by the extent of the current rally, even after many times warning that bear-market rallies tend to be sudden, violent affairs.

Nevertheless, the facts point to the dramatic advance of the past 10 days (the best seven-day rally since 1939) as still nothing more than a rebound following a sell-off that took prices to a level that had to be attacked by bargain hunters and patient investors alike.

Now, however, the easy part is behind them.

With a stock market advance in six of the past eight sessions, the bulls are now feeling in complete control. And it is no wonder that many are calling the low of early March the end of the bear market.

The Dow Industrials are up 14.79% from the March 6 low. The S&P 500 has gained 16.64%, and the Nasdaq has gained 15.48%.

But as the indices rise to the top of the first overhead barrier, volume is declining on days when the market advances.

Monday, the stock market stumbled, breaking a four-day winning streak at the first shallow resistance zone bounded by S&P 500 742 to 780. Yesterday's high for the index was 774.53.

It is clear that the reversal for the S&P resulted from afternoon profit-taking, so the index could spring back as early as today.

More ominous, however, was the Nasdaq's tape action.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 closed above the 20-day moving average at 745.10 for the first time since Feb. 9. And it closed above the resistance line drawn from the November low at 741.02 for the first time since Feb. 13.

Volume for each of the days of higher prices increased to more than 1.8 billion shares on the NYSE, and that is a higher-than-average volume for any month this year (1.6 billion average). But volume has been picking up since the breakdown on Feb. 27, at S&P 500 740, when more than 2 billion shares traded.

With a reflex rally now under way, the question is: How far can it go?

On Thursday, the S&P 500 closed above the 20-day moving average at 745.10 for the first time since Feb. 9. And it closed above the resistance line drawn from the November low at 741.02 for the first time since Feb. 13.

Volume for each of the days of higher prices increased to more than 1.8 billion shares on the NYSE, and that is a higher-than-average volume for any month this year (1.6 billion average). But volume has been picking up since the breakdown on Feb. 27 at S&P 740 when more than 2 billion shares traded.

With a reflex rally now underway, the question is: "How far can it go?"

Tuesday's 6.4% rally on the S&P 500 was the best single day in almost four months. And an internal indicator, the NYSE A/D ratio, registered its highest number since Oct. 13, at 12.75.

Also, volume was above the average volume of the past three months and was more than 40% over Monday's volume on the NYSE.

Most analysts attributed the rally not only to very oversold readings, but primarily to the announcement of profits by Citigroup (NYSE: C) for both January and February.

But if that's the case, why then didn't the market follow through yesterday afternoon when JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) said that it too scored profits in those months?

Today, I want to examine what others are thinking about this market.

I read Peter Brimelow's refreshing column, and on Monday he summarized the prognostications of some of the popular letter writers:

"Astrology oriented Crawford Perspectives ... up 50.75% last year, said, 'There are evidences that our whole system is melting down, and that could certainly disturb the normal cyclic flow. We believe that will NOT happen All At Once or Right Now! Even a drowning man gets a last breath or two before going down for the count.'"

Technicians continue to bemoan that, despite the oversold internal indicators and sentiment numbers that show record levels of fear, the market continues to sell off. Normally at such oversold levels of the key indicators we should expect a rally -- but not lately.

A rally may be overdue but, so far, all we seem to get is one or two days up and then down again. The mood is best described by a Standard & Poor's market strategist who on Friday said, "We think the market is in desperate need of a washout to at least turn the tide for awhile back to the upside. We have been looking for a counter-trend rally, but all we are seeing are one-day wonders."

So where is the bottom -- or bottoms?

Late Friday, it looked like the market would suffer another loss until buyers (or traders who were covering shorts) salvaged the day with a 25-minute rally. But despite Friday's small gain, the week was the worst in memory for the Dow, as it fell 6.2%. The S&P 500 was off 7% and the Nasdaq dropped 6.1% for the week.

Despite the extremely oversold internal indicators, the stock market shows no indication of having made a bottom.

The S&P 500 double-bottom finally collapsed Feb. 27, after holding firm for more than four months. But the strong 800 to 820 support zone gave way several weeks before, led by the Dow Industrials, which cracked its support at 7,940 even before that.

The breakdown hit a plateau at the Dow 7,390 area, which also marked the market's low on Nov. 21. After several days of indecision, sellers drove stocks to new lows and the Dow headed for lower ground. So where do we go from here?

With the market breaking to new lows last week, the market ended the worst six months of trading since 1932. But even with the Dow and the broader-based indices down more than 50%, there appears to be no bottom yet in sight for the major indices.

Some technicians are calling for at least a modest reflex rally, and that certainly is overdue. Perhaps we even saw the beginning of it yesterday.

But don't count on making money on reflex rallies unless you're almost perfect at picking tops and bottoms -- and I know of few traders who can consistently perform that bit of magic.

After five days down, many are saying that the market is bound to get a rally since it is so "oversold."

But the current break is much like the October drop that took the Dow from just above 10,500 to 7,774 in seven-straight sessions, ending with the selling climax of Oct. 10. And that last day of selling ended the decline when a key reversal finally marked the bottom of a trading range that would last for more than four months.

The point is that the market doesn't "have to do" anything. The current sell-off could end today or extend for any length of time, but it will likely end on a climax similar to the one on Oct. 10.

The Dow Industrials broke down as long ago as Feb. 20, and it looked like any breakdowns might be confined to just those few stocks. But with Friday's new closing low on the S&P 500 and yesterday's massive sell-off with very wide breadth, it is clear that the near-term trend clearly supports lower prices.

But how low?

Support zones just don't give a clear answer to that, since we must go back to 1996 before any support shows. Mid-year to mid-fall 1996 show a support zone for the Dow Industrials at 5,300 to 5,800 and the S&P 500 at 625 to 680. That is more than 12 years back and, since time takes away from accuracy, we will go to another source for our "guesstimate."

Since Obama's inauguration, the market seems to have responded negatively to the president's rhetoric, and yesterday was no exception. Within seconds of a White House alert that the president and his chief economic advisers would make an important announcement, stocks headed south.

And by the time that President Obama -- flanked by his team -- began the address at 3:50 p.m. Eastern, the Dow had given up more than 100 points, with investors fearful that the team had decided on a major policy shift.

Despite the poor timing of the White House's news conference, which contained little new information and spooked traders into a flurry of profit-taking, Wednesday's small correction did little to change Tuesday's upside reversal and the probability of further buying.