Pinning their hopes on the Fed?

Even though the major indices finished flat yesterday, the price action and cumulative ticks indicated bearish sentiment still prevails. After a monster gap up, stocks were sold into the strength with the gap eventually filling. Cumulative ticks trended lower the whole day and finished at a very bearish -90,000. There has been lots of news about investors buying this market because the Fed will come and save the day with QE3. I would think that the probability of such an event is low as the Fed's mandate is not to support equity prices but economic growth. From a political standpoint, there doesn't seem to be much support either for another round of debasing the US currency. All in all, if traders were that positive about more QE3 then the shorts would have covered and this market would be bid much higher. I can't help but think that if we don't see some kind of surprise supportive announcement from the Fed (other than a repeat of it's last statement) then markets could head lower. Certainly the longer we hang around at these price levels, the higher the chance we break through them.