I saw these articles side-by-side in this morning's New York Times business section:

As bears, this is precisely what we want to see. When someone like Ben Stein writes a column titled, "I Give Up – There Is No Hope", then we can start getting aggressive on the long side. As long as folks mired in the mindset of the 80s and 90s keep mewing about how things have turned a corner, we can continue to feast on them.

I'm looking forward to this week. I have a mountain of juicy short setups waiting in the wings. I do think the S&P might have some more upside left – – say to around 925 or so. But take note of the tinted pattern as well as the moving averages. I like what I see.

For me, a very safe shorting area would be if the S&P were to poke above the top of that recent tinted area. The last time it did this, it was able to struggle another 1% higher before succumbing. I think I will avoid any index bets until such a move took place. In the meantime, I will judiciously enter new shorts that I've already got waiting in the wings.

Having passed levels 1 and 2 of the CMT exam, I'll be taking the final level, 3, this spring. As part of my required reading, I just finished Financial Armageddon (a search at Amazon reveals a surprising number of different books, all published in the past couple of years, with the identical title…………in any case, it's the one in the middle):

 As sourpussed a character as I might seem, the dystopian vision laid out in a book like this is, to me, simply the polar opposite of insane bullish nonsense like Dow 30,000 by 2008 (as proof of Amazon's solid technology, this book is listed as being "Frequently Bought With" another book, Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Go Bust – And How You Can Profit From It, published February 21, 2006………..which I imagine is the very day that the boom peaked).

I do believe the next several years (four? five? six? something like that………..) are going to be surprisingly nasty for the United States and the world, but I see it as more of a soul-cleaning purgatory rather than a permanent hell. Financial Armageddon lays out a vision of the country's future not much different than Zimbabwe's………..rampant crime, a crippled legal system, shattered lives, and mayhem in the streets. The dislocation caused by our financial hubris will be severe, but for goodness sake, the established infrastructure, wealth, and resources aren't going to suddenly vanish.

Although it is somewhat fringe, I still find Conquer the Crash to be the most helpful guide on how to navigate our financial future. I'd be interested in hearing opinions on writings or books you have found helpful. I'm going to tackle Crash Proof now. See you on Monday morning, if not sooner.