Don't hold your breath for further gains in stocks, which have risen powerfully off their mid-February lows, two traders say.
"The market is pricing in a less than 1 percent probability that we rally 10 percent over the next three months," said Stacey Gilbert, head of derivative strategy at Susquehanna. "This is actually extraordinarily low on a historic level."
Gilbert's calculation of a market-implied 1 percent probability is based on how responsive call option prices are to the market's daily moves (a metric known as delta).
On the other hand, "the downside really isn't being priced in as a high probability" either, Gilbert added Tuesday on CNBC's Trading Nation."
The next move could well come down to corporate results. Earnings season unofficially kicks off when Alcoa reports after the bell on Monday. And if reports fail to improve on last year's Q1 results, this will be the third-straight quarter of weaker S&P 500 earnings, extending the so-called earnings recession.
"We need to see if there's been any growth," Gilbert said. "That is the big thing the market needs."
Some traders see losses from current levels as quite likely.
"We're going to see bouts of real volatility, and we're going to see it drift lower," Max Wolff of Manhattan Venture Partners predicted Tuesday on "Trading Nation."
Wolff said that with the S&P 500 trading at 18 to 19 times earnings, we're currently at the high end of a "very boring range" for the market — and with a low chance that earnings catch up to this relatively high multiple, stocks seem primed to fall.
