Overall sweeper activity was mixed on Wednesday. The flow had a bullish print in most of the session, then protection started to mix in throughout the afternoon. Most of the order flow Wednesday, especially the size, likely was August position replacement. Every round of buying that looked interesting, and multiple August positions in open interest are set to expire on Friday. What does that mean? Doesn't mean much of anything, not a bullish or bearish bias, so we can look for post-August expiration buying in any of this week's activity that may be interesting or confirmation.
On the sentiment front...

Options flow started the Friday session extremely messy as both call and put buyers were active nearly at an even pace. That being said, a big chunk of morning protection steemed from China-related issues and once that activity dried up, flow had a much cleaner look to it into the afternoon. 
Mega-cap tech and secular growth(lower rates related) were once again where buyers maintained focus. Players were on the hunt for that lower yields theme needing more exposure into tech earnings, but also because of an expectation for a more dovish Fed this week, coming off a spike in worldwide health conditions.
On the sentiment front
Short-term sentiment finally pushed higher off Friday's rally but finished short of landing in the "caution zone", many intermediate-term indicators hardly budged last week. 
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Wednesday's overall institutional activity was bullish, flow was dominated by earnings positioning and buying in the more speculative names, playing off the 2nd day of strength in small caps. 
We are currently in the heart of earnings season, so our only edge from the flow is as a source of momentum over the extreme short term. Keep a closer eye on the buying in post-earnings plays to see if they can supply some clues for rotation, once we get through the next couple of weeks, as is usually the case, buying on red days will tell us more than forced buying into green.
On the sentiment front
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The bulls
Healthy rinse late-week took some risk off the table. July expiration and Friday selling removed elevated gamma risk, although it didn't get to that normal level for a potential snap-back squeeze.
Crowded inflation and cyclical plays are not crowded anymore but bulls have certainly been stubborn, which lengthens the process. Small caps as well saw a solid shake, some of these groups are at or close to sentiment bounce signals, but not all.
Now with July expiration in the rear view mirror, we will officially see if the current price action is indeed a "tightening" phase ( similar to late 2018) or it was more about the greater forces at play from July expiration, like liquidity and dealer positioning.
The bears
Price action has resembled late 2018 and this rolling bear market that we are seeing take place underbelly will eventually find quality mega-cap and the indices.
Even with Friday's selloff, short-term sentiment didn't quite get there yet. Sectors that have seen the brunt of the selling have shown an improvement in sentiment but not all flashing bull signals just yet. This rotation has been so aggressive this year, do they all need to get to bull signal territory before we see a legit bounce?
July expiration is now behind us but earnings season is officially her...