What a week it has been! Various markets saw noticeable declines on news of rising yields. The strong upward trend for stocks is finally taking a long-overdue breather and so is extreme sentiment. Let’s look at some bullish and bearish factors to give us a better idea of what the markets are doing. VIX spike VIX spiked more than 35% on a day when the S&P 500 fell less than 2.5%. This is a nervous market… This is also an unusual occurrence with only 7 other similar cases since 1990. Historically, this was a bullish sign for stocks over the next 9-12 months.