A Recent Idea Revisited

You may recall my recent BKS call in which I caught the breakdown. It was a beautiful trade, I must say. Covered my short near the lows. Now this dog has rallied right back to the break point. It doesn't get much better than this: major top, breakdown and (now) rally back to point of prior break. I re-entered BKS on the short side yesterday and will be increasing my position here.

One other idea, real quick. GM. I'm licking my chops. I feel like GM is way, way overvalued. Or another way to say it is that I think GM is doomed. I caught a good part of it's recent breakdown but closed it out way too early. Now with a rally back to $28 I'm very excited to get another crack at it. GM is going much, much lower from here.

A Quick Dose of Reality

Just a quick word on reported Q4 GDP which came in at 0.6%...if we were using a realistic (as opposed to completely fucking bogus) inflation rate GDP would already be a negative number. Contraction currently underway- that's the reality.

The consensus in the marketplace appears to be that we've had a bear market for a couple months and now banks, retailers and homebuilders are a buy. The bulls are so arrogant and they'll be proven wrong. There is no way this all over. No way. We are in the early innings and have a long, long way to go before this plays out.

I came into this week extremely negative on the market. I put my money where my mouth is in a big way. Took too much risk and paid the price. Now we may be about to get hammered, just as I said, but early equals wrong. I accept that. It's hard to put your hand back into the fire after having been burned but that is exactly what I'm going to do. I feel very strongly that we have another leg down coming very shortly.

Holy Whipsaw

Wow. Often the first reaction on Fed day is the wrong reaction. Sure enough on today's crack distribution we rallied 200 pts then turned around and gave it all back (and then some). These markets are nuts. The volatility is insane.

I'm net short again (after getting whipsawed). My line in the sand is 12,500. We'll see what we get now. I feel much better about shorting this market with the crack dealer out of the picture. If we can't go higher from here it is about to get ugly. Potentially really ugly...but I'm not getting ahead of myself this time.

Bernanke Packs the Pipe

Well there you go. 50 bps more. There should no longer be any doubt about Bernanke's willingness to bail out the markets. Do you realize we've slashed 125 bps in a week? Insanity. Obviously you can't be short this market here. It's not the first time Bernanke has de-balled the shorts.

In three days I have given back half of my spectacular profits for the month. Needless to say I'm a bit hostile. Easy come, easy go. I was wrong to lean on the short side. Lesson learned. Time to move on.

This is not over though. The bulls are now in control but those who think that our problems have been solved by the Fed don't understand our problems. There is a whole closet full of shoes left to drop and the bearded one is blowing through his ammo awfully fast.

Bernanke won this round (for now) but I will have my revenge (sometime this year). Mark my word.

Boom!

It's been great while it lasted but my hot streak has come to an end in spectacular fashion. Yes, I blew myself yesterday- losing a mind-numbing amount of money. It always hurts no matter how great the hot streak that proceeds it.

Now it's time to pick up the pieces. I still have a substantial profit for the month and a handful of positions. I'm wrong, I'm gone. It hurts to be wrong (even in the short term) but I'd rather admit it and get out of the way of the Fed than sacrifice more gains at the alter of my own arrogance.

Nothing more dangerous than a wounded bull. Make no mistake, she is wounded and eventually going down for the count...but that's not the business of the day. We're still in rally mode and I'm still not buying it but am forced to respect it. My intention is to protect my remaining equity and live to fight another day.

Trying to Calm Down a Touch

This week is going to be nuts and despite my urge to do so it's not time to do anything crazy. You can bet I'm big seller coming into the week but I'm not willing to blow myself up. The market is going to be there presenting opportunities next week and the week after.

Plenty of time. (I think) We are still in the early innings of an extended bear market.

Stay in the game.

Not Calling For A Crash...

...Only because it's a sucker's game.

BUT...I think we are going to get hammered right here and now. Looks like we might have one more wave down which would likely be more violent than the last. If that is the case it is going to be incredibly UGLY...soon. Honestly, I think we could trade to 11K on the DOW- which is 10% lower from here. Consider the implications.

Why the crazy bearish sentiment on my part? Simple. My watchlist. Going through the list (of like 500 stocks- haven't counted lately) almost EVERY chart looks the same. Broken support/trendline, rally back to previous support/trendline- which is now resistance stopping the advance! I swear it's uncanny how many charts look EXACTLY the same. I have NEVER seen anything like it. I ran through about 80% of my list Saturday and I've had a nauseous feeling ever since.

If the market opens anything but down big on Monday I am going to sell the hell out of it. I'm scared of the risk but I have to do it because the potential opportunity is so huge. Worst case, I'm wrong and get hammered. Getting aggressive with any idea is particularly frightening ahead of the Fed on Wednesday. The risk is much higher than I'm usually willing to take but my intention is to go all in this upcoming week.

The problem is there are so many opportunities that my head is swimming. I want to short chemicals, commercial real estate, financials, transports and oil stocks. I'd short tech too. You could just about throw a dart at the stock tables and hit a good short candidate. They are EVERYWHERE. The key though is financials which have been my market tell ever since last summer. Last week they were strong, hence the general market rebound. Now that they've all rallied back to support (now resistance), well, you can guess what happens next.

It's also worth pointing out that my upside target was hit- 12,500 on the Dow Friday morning and we've been down ever since. I was hoping for 13K but no such luck. Unless I'm wrong and we rally through 12,500 next week as Bernanke's helicopter buzzes overhead, in which case I'm gone.