You could say every correction/dip/sell off (call it what you want) in the last 4 years had high volume sell offs and low volume bounces. I don't think you can gain any insights from these facts at this point. All bounces will be low volume because nobody trusts them.
I think buying thursday's dip was really the only think you could've done intraday as a bull to make $$ in this market. Otherwise, much agreed, there hasn't been much buying to work for the bulls intraday.
"this market is wierd, it sells off hard on volume, but then rallys on light volume. Now normally that would be bearish (but at least until now) it just keeps going up on light volume. Perhaps its changing but very strange action." read the frigging tape retail traders are shorting the lows (which is almost always a bad idea) and getting stopped out on the snapper rallies. putcall tells the story too. retail is doing the obvious thing. the obvious thing almost never works.
No more volatility case no more subprime liquidity stories. No more hedge funds going under. No more credit crunch.
Funny how people see it differently. I don't see trapped shorts, >95% of the market is long, so I see better prices for 95% of equity traders that didn't sell the first time down. Where is there more pain in 100 shares, the 95 longs that are vulnerable to a sell-off, or the 5 shorts that are vulnerable to a rally? That is why there is larger volume on sell-offs, it isn't guys getting short, it is longs liquidating.
You're making a mistake in market mechanics. A fund manager who became under invested at lower prices is a de facto short. In other words his next market action is that of a buyer. On the other hand there's many long term holders selling into this rally. I'm a seller in the 80's and 90's. With contracting volatility, pressing 63's or some shit price like that is a low prob trade in my estimation.