It is not time to buy the dip just yet. The S & P 500 was higher Tuesday, one day after the broad market index posted its worst day in nearly two years amid revived fears of a recession. The broad market index lost 3%, its biggest one-day drop since 2022. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.4%, falling deeper into a correction. .IXIC 5D mountain Nasdaq Composite That does not mean it is time to pile back into stocks. Many market observers have yet to sound the all clear on the sell-off, as they expect equities have a ways to go until they find a bottom. “Have we seen the worst of it?” Thomas Salopek, head of cross asset strategy at JPMorgan, wrote Monday. “We review the history of bottoming signals, which suggest there is more pain to come.” The current pullback has all the hallmarks of a market correction, the strategist said. Among them is a resteepening of the yield curve, as well as defensive leadership. But markets have yet to get the “full set of ingredients” for a market bottom, including a flattening of the slope for the 20-day moving average, as well as improving market breadth. “Regardless of whether unemployment worsening is confirmed by the next jobs print in four weeks, we suggest using risk-based and technical signals to manage positioning,” Salopek continued. “For now, it is too early to look to buy a market dip.” Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert, said investors should wait for the bottom to be in before rushing back into stocks. “We say it often to clients, which is, ‘Better to leave some money on the table than money in the garbage,’ right? So, don’t rush to try to catch a falling knife,” Malek said. “Wail till the market sort of catches itself and starts to re-trend, then you can start to nibble and get back in.” “At this point, there’s no reason to try to pick the bottom for cash sitting on the sideline,” Malek added. CFRA’s Sam Stovall, who expects the S & P 500 to undergo a pullback of 10% to 15%, said he is watching for more bulls to capitulate before the correction is through. “People need to have their convictions be tested in order for them to be willing to sell, and that’s what’s happening right now,” Stovall said. “A lot of people say, ‘well, you know, I think this market’s due for a digestion of gains, but I really wouldn’t worry about it. I’d look on it as a buying opportunity.’ Well, if everybody felt that way, who would sell? Nobody,” Stovall said. “So what happens is you need to have changes in your convictions or your forecasts to occur.” The S & P 500 on Tuesday traded about 7% below a record high reached last month. Strategas’ Chris Verrone agreed it is too soon to start leaning into the market, saying they are not yet “deeply oversold.” Besides, he said, it is hard to think of a market correction occurring in August, when a bottom is historically more likely to happen in the month of October. “We’d still stop short of calling this enough of a rinse to really lean into yet,” Verrone said. “It might be an easier call if it was October, but we frankly struggle to think of many markets that have put in their corrective lows in early-August.”