Having been awake for 25 hours straight now, I'm anticipating collapsing in a heap early this afternoon. Better bring a pillow to the office!

I'm going to make this quick, because I still have a lot of charts to look at. But some quick points:

• There were about 1,000 comments on the blog yesterday, and there were a couple of fist fights breaking out (julia/2sweeties and itrade4real/buster); please, folks, be nice to one another. Or if someone bothers you, just ignore them. 90% of the value of this blog is the wonderful collection of comments, insights, and links (thanks brutusmaximus…). I love reading the comments and learning from the "collective mind" we have built here, so let's keep the quality of discourse high and the behavior civil.
• I thought folks were joking about short selling being "banned" until I saw the Reuters article; I guess it didn't exactly help yesterday, even though it was supposed to have.
• In spite of my bellyaching about not having index puts, I was happy to see some of my shorts which had been doing absolutely nothing finally starting cooking. NIHD, AMX, and SMG spring to mind.
• Molecool told me to chill with the dozen posts a day; I guess the frequency of my posts is symptomatic of the frenetic nature of the market. There was a time when one post a day was plenty. Anyway, I will cool it today (although don't yell at me if this post gets 500 comments before I do a new post).

Here are an interesting snippet I saw in the wee hours (at which time I've also been watching the e-mini futures, which had been looking reasonably strong, but as of this writing, 50 minutes before the open, are only a little in the green).

In a stunning turnaround, the benchmark Hang Seng Index lost more than
1,350 points in the morning session to its lowest level in more than
two years, only to claw back all of the lost ground and then some in
the closing moments. The index, which lost 15.2% in the previous six
sessions, finally ended 0.03% lower at 17,632.46. The sharp recovery
was aided by news that the Federal Reserve and other major central
banks planned to inject hundreds of billions of dollars worth of
liquidity into the financial system in a bid to thaw frozen short-term
money markets.

Good luck, everyone. This is a very tough market to consistently draw profits from, and only the most dextrous are able to do it.

Alexander Elder wrote a book called, I believe, Welcome to My Trading Room. I think I should write a book now called Welcome to My Bedroom, because I'm still slumped here in bed, in the wee hours of the morning, going through charts. My alarm is set for 3:15 a.m. so I can dive in more seriously.

Hello, God, it's me, Tim. I know I could have made more during this downswing, and for that I am a sinner. Could you see your way clear to push the markets back on to their necklines? If you could do that for me, Lord, believe me, I'll take advantage of it. Thank you. Oh, and amen.

This schedule is grinding my body into hamburger. Ugh. I can only hope I manage to get up as early as I need – – like 3 a.m. – – to go through all my charts. There's no way I am able to do any kind of epic post right now. I can't even manage to read the comments (one of my favorite aspects of doing this blog).

In a macro sense, everything I've been talking about all these months is finally happening. The trade in $UTIL is a great example. So I am hopeful that the kinds of suggestions discussed here, particularly in the past eight weeks, have yielded the collective readership of this blog many millions of dollars in profits.

The saying that "nobody makes money in bear markets, including the bears" is starting to make sense to me. I'm making money, but God almighty, it's exhausting. In retrospect, it need not be, because you just let things fall to pieces. But given the way the market can rip higher unexpectedly, playing "defense" with one's profits takes a lot of vigilance.

The market is bound to snap higher sometime soon. I thought it was going to be today, and that cost me a portion of the day's profits (and a large opportunity cost). Given the "rush for the exits" near the day's end, it's obvious the notion of holding stocks for more than one trading day has become terrifying for people.

Gobbling up index puts at this point seems horrifically risky. I need to clear my mind and look at all my charts to really find out what I'm going to do next (whether taking profits on my existing shorts or selectively going long battered positions). A few hours of sleep is what I need now. I'll do a post before the open.

I've been up since 4 a.m., and I'm feeling the effects. I'm getting sick of saying "What a day!" every day. We are experiencing financial 9/11 day after day after day. Even for a bear like me, it's exhausting.

I hope to do a post later, but it'll be late tonight. I haven't even managed to read today's comments yet. Anyway, hang in there; I hope you folks are doing well.

I'm looking forward to reading comments (even though there's probably a small amount of snark in there………) Obviously today was incredible, and obviously I missed a huge opportunity by not owning index puts today. Indeed, I came into the market long the QQQQ. So – – irony of ironies – – Mr. Bear got smacked by the Bear Market.

Not to say that today was bad. I made some money, but not nearly as much as I "should" have (the quotes are deliberate, because it's all too easy to second guess ourselves). Naturally I am disappointed, and I am going to go through all my charts (well over 1,000 of them) to get a fresh look before the opening bell tomorrow.

I honestly thought the Dow would shake off most of its losses today, but I think the persistent fear is My God What Is Next. So people couldn't stomach the idea of staying long. Two hours before the close, the Dow was really blasting higher. That fell to pieces.

Reaching for my report card, I'd give myself a B- today. Considering the circumstances – – and greatly aided by my bullish gold call! – – it wasn't so bad. But I can't help but say I am disappointed in myself for not believing the Bear could dig deeper. I've waited far too long for this market to act in that manner. Shame on me.