I've been mentioning recently about the risk of strength in financials – – well, that's happening. From FNM to FRE to MBI and FED, they are all flying higher. That goes for bigger issues like JPM and MER as well.

Gold and oil remain weak, and the dollar strong, which is what I expected. I am far less sanguine about the strength in equities. It is still below the busted wedge, but this kind of strength is certainly unsettling!

I am posting this 90 minutes before the close, and I might not be able to do my after-the-close post until this evening. I'll see you then.

Trapped! Trapped, I tell you! If this stupid market would just make up its freakin' mind, maybe someone out there – a bull or a bear – could make and keep some cash! Jeebis!

The reason for this post's title is that two of the nine positions I got bounced out of this morning were BLK and ICE, and I thought I'd do a quick post about the value and rationale behind stop prices.

To my way of thinking, 80% of the value in technical analysis comes from knowing when you are wrong, not knowing when you are right. Dealing with things when you are right is a cinch. There's nothing I love more than resetting a stop on a position to an increasingly favorable price with the purpose of locking in better and better profits.

That doesn't always happen, of course, and the more important situation is getting pulled out of a position when a given thesis of yours turns out to be incorrect (or at least delayed).

Take ICE, for instance, which has long been a favorite of mine. Based on its pattern, what it should have done is broken beneath its July 11th low of $80.20 and plunged. What has been happening for the entire month of August, though, is a consolidation in the $80 to $90 range and, this morning, a small breakout above that range. Thus, I was stopped out for a loss on the position.

Does this mean ICE will never plunge? No. Does this mean that my observation of the pattern's potential was wrong? No, unless it eventually pushes above $117.25. What it does mean, though, is that this stock is not behaving in the way it needs to behave for me to make a profit, and I'm not comfortable waiting for "something else" to happen; I would rather be out of the position altogether and continue to observe for another possible opportunity.

My portfolio took a 5% haircut today. That's no surprise, considering the strength in both equities and commodities. Oh, well; not every day can be a winner!

I have been very absent from comments lately, so please don't be insulted if you think I'm ignoring you. I'm not. I don't even have the chance to ignore you, since I'm not there! I am simply mired in other activities.

As was the case yesterday, I don't have a tremendous amount to say about the markets; there simply isn't much from a technical perspective happening. It was interesting to see AMLN, which I've mentioned a couple of times in this blog, take a 25% tumble. Sometimes it takes a little while for a stock to finally succumb to technical forces. Needless to say, that horizontal resistance line proved important.

The markets continue to be in F.I.M. (Farting Around Mode); here we see the Dow 30 biding its time beneath its busted wedge. Snore.

The Russell was up percentage-wise more than most indexes, but it hasn't broken its modest series of lower lows and lower highs.

A variety of issues that were severely battered by the credit crisis have, over the past several weeks, been up in some cases even hundreds of percent. FRE and FNM have been very strong this week, but to my eyes, this is nothing more than another lurch toward that sharply descending trendline.

I have been quietly accumulating a large position in DUG; this isn't a money-maker yet, and I've got a stop at that red line you see.

The "Jesus Pattern" of ANR (click on Present Chart to see it more plainly) isn't spiritually inspirational yet. A push above the high set early in August would take me out of this position. At least the volume has been withering away.

I am, however, pretty pleased with GOOG. In spite of some big strength in the NASDAQ, GOOG has been sinking. Some overall weakness in the markets could push this back into the three hundreds.

That's it for me today; I'm not trying to squander the wonderful traffic I've built up over all these months with lame posts, but today just doesn't call for any more commentary. And with that, I shall return to my work! See you tomorrow.

Phew, not a very good day for the bears! Ouch!

I'm not too shaken up by the charts I am seeing, but I will note, as I did yesterday, that some of the financials may have been battered enough to mount a rally. MER in particular, based on the retracements, looks enticing. I'm not going to act on it, but I wanted to share the chart.