Yesterday was great (up 3.75%) and today wasn't so great (down 1.5%). I pointed out in last night's video the import of staying below 8,000. True to form, the bulls "undid" the sub-8,000 market and gave the Dow 141.53 points.
The graph below shows an important contrast – – back in November/December of last year, we were feasting on a range in the S&P which was simply gigantic – over 210 points! Recently, even at the most extreme ends of the range, we're dealing with an opportunity one-third of that size. Puny! So it's much harder to make profits on any big moves.
I have a much less aggressive /ES short position now – a mere 10 contracts, with a stop at 849. Looking at the daily candlestick graph (as opposed to the minute bars, above), the chart seems more bullish than bearish. The whole world is waiting for the Recovery Plan+Bad Bank news this month, and until that's announced and vetted, we're all just playing guessing games.
My guess is that, years from now, the Recovery Act will be equated with the Patriot Act. That is, a gigantic boondoggle put together hastily based on a supposed need for expediency. Corners will be cut, liberties will be infringed, and countless billions will be wasted. But in the WalMart/Paul Blart Mall Cop world we inhabit, hardly anyone is sensible enough to know better. So the gubmint is going to give the masses what they want.
In the meantime, we watch, and we wait. And we keep our stops fresh!With a market this uninteresting, I have no broad things to say. My positions speak for themselves, and as you know, I simply increased the size of my positions today for those charts in which I have particularly large amounts of faith.