Found a nice and easy way to confirm my trades. Standard deviation, heiken ashi, and some general charting IN CONJUNCTION with simple gettrendstrategy provide some good insight. Look for a trend change, and a convincing breakout above or below previous channel, with appropriate slope (that's really your risk level). I use heiken ashi to confirm those trend changes, through consecutive color changing bars (that are OUTSIDE of S.D. regression channel), as well as Ichi with accumulation and distribution (not pictured). I also take a look at momentum for better trade entry and exits.
All said and done, we're in no man's land, but the current uptrend has been getting weaker, and SD regression channels are really small now, so a break in either direction would likely get amplified. Waiting for a short entry sub 1980 confirmed by multiple red bars on a fast move, trend change, ichi cloud turning red, trailing price below current price, MACD going down, TLT moving up, VXX/UVXY moving up, SPY distribution kicking in, and finally the Put to Call ratio for SP500 going more bear ;).