Slope Of Hope with Tim Knight

Vanishing Jobs

The jobs report just came out from the Labor department, and the figures are somewhat worse than the consensus predicted. The losses are the greatest seen in over five years (since March 2003). Looking at my streaming charts, the immediate reaction was (a) the EUR/USD taking a quick tumble {that is, a stronger dollar}; (b) the equities as measured by @ES0812 pushing a little higher, from about no change to positive 7 points as of this writing (a little less than an hour before the opening bell).

My core wish is that this house vote gets done before the market closes today. I think we're all sick of waiting. Of course, there's no guarantee at all this will happen. But this entire Congressional thing is like a psychosis on the entire market, worse than all the FOMC announcements and earnings seasons combined.

I see the S&P is now higher by low double digits now. It's going to be a weird day, I can tell.

Ya. Sure. You Betcha.

It's late and I need to get a few hours of sleep. Tomorrow (Friday) is obviously going to be huge in terms of anxiety and importance. I have lost track of how many weeks we've all been on this ridiculous roller coaster, but it almost makes me miss the bad old days when we have to scratch around for a decent opportunity or two in the midst of bull-land. In any case, I'll do a post in the morning after the jobs number comes out. Good night.

Going Bullish: A Total Waste of Time & Money

I laid out my strategy yesterday. Go partly bullish to play the retracement. Bag the profits on the way up. Reverse the position. Bag the profits on the way down to lower lows. Brilliant, eh?

Not so much. Every single long position I got into today was a loser. GGP was a particular gem! (I'm, um, no longer in that one). I guess for a bear to be a bull in a bear market is pretty bulltarded.

Not to say that it wasn't a sensational day. The sick thing, though, is that I've got a pretty severe case of the "couldas" going on, because I keep track of my former positions, and many of them have moved up hundreds of percent in price higher. Looking in the rear-view mirror is largely useless, but I do it anyway, just to torture my beleaguered soul.

At this point, I am positioned for the mother-of-all Russell 2000 collapses. If the market explodes higher tomorrow, I'm pretty much in for it. Well, not totally. I've still got a ton of unallocated cash. I've got a big OIH call position. And I've still got eighteen long positions on equities. But having a big $RUT put position with the $VIX at nearly 50 gives me the jitters.

I am going to go offline for a while now, since I am hosting a party at my house for the Biden/Palin debacle debate. I've dubbed it the Electile Dysfunction Party, and it should be interesting. I'll do a post very late tonight. But let's face it - - - the real fireworks are going to be (a) the jobs report tomorrow before the open (b) the House vote, which will take place God-knows-when (c) the reaction to the House vote, which, frankly, no one can predict.

This market is grinding all of us into hamburger. Go get a little rest.

Tranny Party

It's only half an hour until the close, and only just now did I glance at the Dow Transports (tells you what kind of day this has been.............) My God! Down nearly 10% At this point, we're either at a triple bottom or about to break a major support level which would confirm the Dow Theory bearish signals in a big way.

Is This the Big Kahuna?

OK, there is one thing I refuse to do. I absolutely refuse to be long calls when the wipeout comes. No way. No how. I have waited too long for this market and worked too hard to get here.

I have sold my NDX calls for about a $4,000 loss. I have acquired a substantial Russell put position. I am not thrilled with this, because (a) the VIX is ungodly high; (b) we still could be set up for a big bounce; (c) it's impossible to tell what the reaction will be to the House vote, and whether the bill will pass or not.

But I cannot stomach the notion of having my only index position be bullish and seeing the Dow blow up by 2,000 points. That's a nightmare scenario.

Setting aside all this emotional nonsense, I will point out that the Russell ($RUT) has broken a massive, massive neckline. This isn't a perfect H&S pattern, but it's pretty good, and it's gigantic. People, we could be looking at a wipeout on Friday or Monday. I hope I don't keep hoisted up by my keister by chasing a phantom here.

$UTIL Ready to Move Higher?

Add to my thick book called "Sold Too Soon" my SDP position. $UTIL has continued to move down, although it hasn't violated the 281.6% retracement which was the basis of my (somewhat hasty) sell. Anyway, I'm looking for it to bottom around here and move up to the pink oval I've drawn. Should this happen, I'll gobble up SDP again and hang on for a much bigger drop.

I will mention my "knife-catching" exercise with long positions isn't going great (although the gains elsewhere are so good today it doesn't even matter). I bought GGP and got distracted so I neglected to set a stop. A couple of hours later, it was down about 40% from my purchase price! Ouch! In any case, this waiting-for-a-bounce is anxiety-producing. I'm not sure how strong I'm going to hold on to these NDX calls. Things still look terrible out there.

McLovin McKesson

This looks like a fantastic short. I actually am already short, but I'm going to buy puts as well.

ProphetCharts Rocks the Free World

Technical Analysis: I Love You! (If you haven't fallen in love yet, you should buy my book about the topic.) I am just printing money these days, and it's all thanks to ProphetCharts. I am getting incredible exit points! Here are just a couple of examples.

I am getting more and more nervous about disaster striking. Things simply cannot go this perfectly for this long. But, as always, I am updating my stops and keeping my position size sensible. I am heavily positioned for a bounce at this point, especially in the world of energy.

Reversing Energy and Gold!

I've made a ton of profits on going short energy and gold. I have closed out these shorts and am reversing my position. OIH looks particularly compelling for a bullish play.

Longitude

OK, I sold my SPX puts this morning at a profit (obviously) and my QLD at a loss (obviously); although the gain outweighed the loss. The huge winners for me today, of course, are my energy and gold shorts.

It's painful to lok at the index puts I sold a month ago. They're up several hundred percent at this point. Ouch! Oh, well. If any of us could see even one week ahead with certainty, we'd soon be richer the Buffett and Gates.

I am carefully examining my puts/shorts and, although I am closing out virtually none of them, I am tightening up stops quite a bit. I have also gone long a variety of issues. I intend to reverse these positions later after I ride the (hoped-for) push upward. Here they are, along with their stop prices.

APD 65.04
ABK 2.05
ASH 26.80
BZH 4.99
BORL 1.29
BPFH 7.78
BYD 7.89
EIX 37.71
EQT 30.33
FORM 16.39
GGP 13.36
HES 72.27
HON 34.13
HOV 5.92
EFA 51.99
JEC 46.48
JBLU 4.51
MA 150.59
NFX 26.99
PXP 30.63
PX 67.77
RIMM 60.02
TXT 26.45
VOD 21
WFMI 18.87
$NDX 1496.15