Ben "Dover" Bernanke

Releasing the information the way they did this week our Federal Reserve was intentionally manipulating the markets. With no clear mention of it Tuesday when they made their scheduled rate decision they come back Wednesday and drop a bomb on traders. For good measure they leaked the information. Right before the market open in a deliberate attempt to jam the futures. Which they did to a degree to which I've seldom ever seen. Bam! Just like that. You can bet somebody got carried off the trading floor on a stretcher.

This is just some shady, sleazy and unethical stuff here. I don't appreciate it and I was glad to see most of the gains come off as the day wore on. These sort of things increase the already substantial risk of being short in this market. But I for one sure as hell don't want to be long.

Bernanke shot his weapon this week. He has more ammunition but the Fed is losing credibility and it's about time. Again, they are a joke. This sort of underhanded delivery in addition to a plan lacking in transparency undermines confidence in the market place. This place is a banana republic. We need to see what the damage is- who is insolvent?- but the only efforts being made by the Treasury and Fed work to further obfuscate.

Today's (Thursday) action was nondescipt. Down big this morning only to rally back to flat- more or less. I covered some at the lows only because I was carrying a lot of risk (and they were down big) but I feel confident in my positions for the most part. Generally though I would prefer to have less skin in the game going into year end simply to preserve gains.

Yields have shot up this week and that bears watching. Dollar also bouncing. Metals got creamed today and I remain short term negative on them. Maintain insurance sized position but nothing speculative. Don't forget the highest month over month gain in the PPI since the 1970's. Whew! That's hot. Fed in a box. Friday we get CPI data.

If we are up much on the indexes I may be forced to take cover and live to fight another day. As much as I want to be banking coin while other traders are going on vacation- working hard when others aren't- wouldn't mind declaring victory and going kayaking.