Five up days so far. Impressive! I trimmed a few of my longs (never did I think I'd make 30% on the likes of Abercrombie and Fitch in a few days…………) and added a few shorts.

This upward movement is great for the bears. The VIX needs to go down; confidence and comfort need to go up. There are plenty of dynamite short opportunities that will be available to us.

The market is going to hit its first bit of struggle at around 905, which is getting very close.

I think it still has a good chance of bullying its way just north of 1,000 before we can get really aggressive on the short side. I am pretty much in a defensive mode right now, using longs as a way of cushioning my short positions, and updating my stops to be safe.

I am getting a little more squirellish at we inch higher, but I am doing a pretty good job keeping emotions out of the picture. I will get some serious "chart time" this weekend, now that Thanksgiving is behind us, and I'll have a better view into the near-term.

Sorry to have been so quiet, everyone. The reasons are obvious. Added to which, there is simply nothing-at-all of interest happening in the markets today! They close early today at 1 p.m., and I keep checking the chart, wondering if I got the time wrong, because things haven't budged.

I'll do a decent post later today. Just saying howdy.

Just one of the ingredients:

Mrs. Bear is calling me; back to the kitchen………..hope everyone is having a good Thanksgiving!

I'm sure glad I was open-minded about bullish positions. It saved my bacon today. Here is a chart from ElliottWave.com illustrating the extremely negative sentiment which, in their view (and I agree) set the stage for a potent wave 4 advance.

Earlier today, I bought into QLD and SSO. I remain long DBA, although I'm a little dumbfounded how it seems to be just sitting there, doing diddly squat, on a day when OIH shot up nearly 10% and all the indexes rallied huge. A net daily change of 0.42% just doesn't get my blood pumping.

I still have plenty of shorts and puts, and obviously they took on some damage today, but few very were stopped out. I am comfortable hanging onto this blend of positions, and I will update stops regularly. I imagine that, if we continue easing higher, more and more shorts/puts will drop off, and I'll supplement my long positions. We'll see if the color of my portfolio moves from an even split to outright bullish.

This is all about (a) capital preservation and (b) opportunistic gains during our wait for the next big plunge, which could be many weeks or even a few months off. Until then, let's continue to do our best and use charts as our voice of reason in a world gone mad.