Lots of interesting chatter over the health of the market. But only the market will decide who’s right and wrong.

Our strategy is one of patience. We don’t pounce until we know things are stacked in our favor.

We’re going to consider Thursday’s low as a potential bottom, thus we’re looking for a Follow Through Day (FTD) to happen beginning Wednesday.

An FTD occurs between four and 11 days of potential market low, with one of the major indexes up at least 1.2% on volume greater than the previous day’s. This is a sign on institutional support for the Long side of the market.

Waiting four days gives shorts time to cover before we can discern real institutional buying. And in this environment it saves us from the incredible turbulence we’re having.

While pundits like Jim Cramer may have uncanny insight into business, predicting what will happen with price-action day to day is a losers game. Ignore people like that claiming the market will resume its nosedive.

The longer-term picture for the stock market may very well be bearish. But we play the intermediate-term, and look at trading environments as simply good or bad.

This means the macro-economics at hand mean little to us because the market doesn’t really care about them. How many times have you seen markets rally despite all the negative hype? Markets habitually screw popular sentiment. So do we.

Our risk-averse method has saved us from a lot of pain last week.

If we don’t get a FTD, it tells us the bear is on course.

But we’ll let the market tell us what to do, not Jim Cramer.