Stock futures are gapping higher this morning, following through on yesterday's 1.2% S&P 500 (^GSPC) rally. The bulls are clearly betting that this is yet another "V" bottom sling-shot back to record highs ahead of the start to earnings season next week. Is it really that easy? Let's look at the charts.

Here's the S&P 500 six months. If you look carefully you can see that both the October waterfall decline and the December freeze actually had strong reversal days about halfway through the drop. One of the stronger days of 2014 was October 8th, three months ago today, when the S&P rallied 1.8% in one day. How did that turn out? One week later stocks bottomed at 1820, more than 7.5% lower.

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Does that matter? Well if they held on through that pain the dip buyers ended up richly rewarded by the end of the year. That said, I personally don't think most of the earliest dip buyers are the ones who ended up selling the top on December 29th. I've been trading for 20 years and I've been doing it in public for half that time. The guys who were bragging loudest about their trading muscles a decade ago are all gone now. I can assure you they didn't retire to their own private islands.

Related: Crappy New Year: Is January the new October for stocks?

Speaking of warmth don't underestimate the impact of the season. This is the coldest, bleakest, nastiest time of the year. 180 million Americans are going to wake up freezing this morning. Buying stocks is an act of optimism. The mood may feel sunny at the moment but it's as brittle as your finger tips as you fumbled with your keys this morning.

So the lines are drawn, as it were. If stocks open where futures suggest they will we'll be at the high end of clearly defined range running from 2,000 to 2,050. You don't have to trade it, in fact most of you shouldn't. Just know that big money traders are watching those numbers and how they trade off it will impact your portfolio.

Related: January's tidal wave of events will keep trading choppy

Whether or not that matters to you depends on your investing time frame and whether or not you could feel your toes after you got to your car this morning.

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