Less than an hour into the trading day, and my portfolio has notched up another 3.2% so far. The indexes have cleared themselves a path for lower levels in the medium term, as tinted below.

It was a pretty interesting day on the market, which seems unusual given the Dow's anemic 9 point rise. But underneath that apparent inactivity was a true softening in the energy-related equities on which I hold puts, gold, and China.

The day started off with over 1,000 points knocked off the Shanghai index and the GLOBEX down sharply. The Amex China Index fell nearly 3%, nicely penetrated its Fibonacci fan line. This represents an important decision point for the medium-term. More weakness tomorrow would usher in a much greater swoon.

We've been watching Lehman and its relationship to the fib fans; it cracked through today. Is this going to be the next Bear Stearns?

The other big thing in the background was crude's weakening in price, driven principally by the strength in the U.S. dollar. Of course a "low" price for crude and a "strong" dollar are very relative terms.

To witness how the US Dollar has been getting its mojo back, look at its relationship to the New Zealand Kiwi over the past couple of months.

Over the past couple of days, NASDAQ (and technology) have been weak relative to the Dow. Notice how the $MSH is backing away from its resistance line. 

And, much more close-up, look at how the prices are playing off the former support. A bearish engulfing pattern tomorrow (Wednesday) would work very well against recent action. A push above 2,000 would diminish my bearishness here.

I've still got my AEM and ABX gold shorts, which did well today. There seems to be a pretty large distribution pattern taking place on the $XAU, spanning nine months now.

My one index put, $SPX, had a decent day. I trimmed back a little on this early in the day, when the market was much weaker, but I've still got a pretty good-sized position here.

I nibbled at some ANR puts today; this stock is simply hyperbolic.

A more clean-cut put position is R, which had a nice increase in volume on today's weakness.

Most of my puts are energy-related. A couple of good examples are Apache…..

…….and Devon Energy……..

Wednesday is pretty quiet on the economic news front, whereas Thursday features retail sales (8:30 EST), and Friday has the CPI numbers (8:30 EST). Thanks, as always, for swinging by!

It's a little over an hour into the trading day, and I'm surprised how little the Dow is down.

I'm doing great so far – my portfolio is up a nice, solid 3.5% just on the 70 minutes we've been open so far, and my charts are looking good. But with the GLOBEX down hard before the open, and Shanghai down over 1,000 points, I was expecting more of a rout.

I am most optimistic about my short plays on oil-related items. Crude oil, as a commodity, is up today, but OIH looks nicely poised for a fall (see prior tinted areas, similarly situated against the fib fans).

As for the Russell (my former favorite, now temporarily untraded by me), we're at the DMZ. The green tint was a bullish setup. The yellow was the breakout itself, but it's run into trouble (see magenta areas). It's a very un-clean breakout and subject to failure. So this line needs to be watched closely.

I guess the (persistently inexplicable) rationale for being perpetually bullish on China – the Summer Olympics – just isn't enough.

After Friday's big sell-off, equities started today off strong, but it was a very inconsistent day. At one point, in spite of the Dow being up triple digits earlier, all the major indexes were in the red (including the NASDAQ, which was down a hefty 2%). Sadly, there was late-day strength, and the Dow managed to tack on 70 points. All the same, much of the damage done on Friday was still intact.

One of the big stories today was Lehman Brothers, which I remarked on earlier today. The case for some short-term support here is decent.

The broader brokerage picture, however, is still fairly bleak. The $XBD is down 40% from its peak, but as you can see from this graph, there's still plenty of open air beneath current prices. Another 50 points off this index seems totally plausible in 2008.

The widely-anticipated iPhone announcement came today. I mentioned a couple of times last week what old news this was, and the classic "buy the rumor, sell the news" rule held true here. At one point, AAPL was down about 9 points. Even with the drop "only" at $4.03, this chart is more attractive than before.

The Dow itself is a mystery to me at this point. There is much more resistance than there is support. The market just needs a catalyst. But this pattern is just a mess right now, and it's hard to see what's next.

The $COMPQ is a little easier for me to interpret. We've got very strong resistance at 2,550, indicated by the purple line, and a drop below 2,425 would be very bearish.

The $NDX sneaked below its support line Friday, but it plunged below it today. This line is very obviously broken at this point.

The chart below is a weekly, as opposed to the more common daily, of the Russell 2000. A drop beneath today's lows would be a very compelling bearish picture for this index, which I have not been trading for quite some time.

My current index position is in the S&P 500, which is the cleanest chart for me to read at this point. My stops on this are set at 1406.20.

"Fizzler" (FSLR) had another nice drop today, reaffirming how broken its former support is.

And a similar situation can be seen with ISRG.

AMLN, one of my equity shorts, had a nice double-digit percentage drop today.

And I am re-attracted to real estate shorts (both individual ones and the broad IYR ETF).

Akamai has been a slow pattern to develop, but it's looking nice.

One of my favorite, cleanest patterns right now is CHTT, which I intend to hold into the high 40s.

And, finally, one specific real estate short is LRY.

After Friday's fireworks, today was a snoozer. Oh, well! Not every day can be 400 points off the Dow, can it? Good night!