Wednesday’s promising rally sputtered out around mid-day — a victim, as all rallies are, of its own excesses.  The Dow was up 380 points at the time, but this still fell about 140 points shy of a threshold where bulls would have been a good bet to recoup their recent, steep losses ahead of the weekend. They could surprise on Thursday with a short-squeeze exceeding 25,520. But that is more than 600 points above Thursday’s close and probably too much to ask, considering how fatigued buyers looked at Wednesday’s top. More likely in my estimation would be a drop of at least 400 points, to around 24423, before bulls begin to find traction.  Meanwhile, volatility ETFs looked primed for another spike. If stocks start to fall again with a vengeance, we can’t say we weren’t warned.