Standard & Poors effectively issued the US government with a warning by lowering its long term outlook on the US sovereign debt from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’. The warning reads; fix you debt iddues or loose your AAA credit rating. This saw American markets down significantly and although they did claw back some of the losses to close well off the lows, the Dow Jones still closed just over 140 points or 1.14% lower. Asian markets have followed, all down over 1% at time of writing; Shanghai suffering the most down 1.9%. Our market put in a shocker of sorts. The XJO closing down 1.4% or just over 68 points. Selling was pretty widespread, the sectors a sea of red. Our short term portfolios had several trades shaken out and pending patterns failing. The trend is now in no-mans land and thereabouts at minor support. Many potential pattern setups are failing and breakouts rolling over so the sidelines may be a prudent place to be until we get a clearer indication of trend direction.