Intra-day price discovery is virtually absent as volatility remains woefully compressed and $SPX barely moves.

It's become quite the scene to watch an index representing 500 stocks with a combined market cap of $27 trillion "trade" in a 0.1% price range for hours on end:

Worse, the price advance action is mostly driven by up gaps that rarely if ever fill and market open ramps that settle into tight price ranges during the day.

While Fed critics are dismissed as QE conspiracists, we can either choose to be believe the Fed or our own lying eyes as the repo machine continues to execute relentlessly:

Open gaps in markets are not unusual, some stay open for weeks, months, even years. Some may never fill.

But it is when you get gap after gap after gap that the action becomes incredulous and challenges conventional market wisdom. I've seen 3 or 4 unfilled gaps in a short time frame, I've even seen 5, but I can't recall seeing anything like this: