I was intrigued by the comment posted by GreatWarrior:

Well Tim, allowed me to say this. I have read your posts probably 3
times a day, but frankly I am not sure if you ever make a directional
calls with a conviction. Here's what you have been doing: Your
wordings on general stock market does not have the "Conviction". Your
bearish posts would contain words like "may …. prefer..", and many
times ended without any real action. So many times I am not sure what
are you up to — you are bearish, but did you short?! if you short, are
you shorting with a whimp size, or are you shorting with a big
position?! Are you confident, or you are just playing 2 sides, and
especially recently, you posted that you hold both long and short
positions on the indexes and ETFs. Confusion, Confusion, Confusion.
ZERO Conviction.

Let me first say this: I am not Atilla. And Atilla isn't me. I (think) we have mutual respect for each other, but we have different styles. Atilla apparently specializes in large directional trades, primarily via the ES. I, on the other hand, tend to make a very large number of small bets, with occasional large bets when my confidence in a certain direction is high (as of this moment I have 59 long positions, 63 short positions, and 41 options, all of one of which are puts).

So, again, the market for blogs that do what GreatWarrior describes is well-served by Atilla. I have no reason to ape his style, nor he mine. I am a pretty big fan of xtrends, and I think it's great that Atilla is so confident. There has been times he has been stone-cold wrong (as have I) and, like a good trader, he changes direction.

As for what might be perceived as weasel words ("might", etc………) a market like this requires nuance and critical thinking. I'm not about to say – – or behave – – in such a way as to suggest that such-and-so will absolutely happen. The market is an ongoing arena of probabilities. Those dedicated to a certain position have a good chance of having their head handed to them.

I noticed a couple of comments lately; one of them on Slope:

And another from xtrends……

Allow me to say a few things:

• Reading my blog every few days doesn't cut it; I am very nimble with my trading. Yes, I mentioned a target of 1000 last week, and I'm still confident it will be met in the coming months, but it doesn't mean a straight line there. You cannot read a post on Thursday and expect that on Monday I will have had no new ideas or commentary.
• For those who stay up with posts, they will see that on Sunday morning I went bearish on China (FXP was up 14.8% today alone) and, on Sunday afternoon, I wrote "I've looked at hundreds and hundreds of charts this weekend, and I am
  neck-deep in fantastic opportunities for shorts and puts on Monday."
• I have no idea who "badral" is, but my personal returns of about 400% so far in 2008 puts me in pretty rare company, which I wouldn't characterize as "pathetic". My conclusion is that you're an idiot.

I don't visit xtrends that often, but I've been there enough to know that Lawrence Chiu whimpers and whines whenever Atilla is wrong, so the guy strikes me as a gigantic pain in my butt (and probably Atilla's too……….)

In any case, I hope the regulars here who know how to read and use Slope made a lot of money today. It was certainly a good day for me, and I appreciate the good folks who show up here regularly.

My bearishness that bubbled up over the weekend was obviously very well-founded.

I have made a decision that, in my IRA account, I am going to load up on a large quantity of small positions that have been completely battered this year. This isn't based on………..

• Any particular pattern……….
• Fibonacci levels…………
• Wave analysis……….

It's based on three simple premises:

1. Generally speaking, over the next several months, I think we're going to stumble our way higher to the "ultimate" peak of this countertrend;
2. During that time, the majority of these little stocks (most of which are around one or two bucks) are going to have very substantial percentage moves higher;
3. A few of them will have significant percentage moves lower; one or two may even go flat-out belly-up, but the percentage gains on the winners will dwarf the losers;

Here are just a few of the items I am buying; make no mistake, I will be getting out of every single one of these early in 2009, but I think the percentage gains could be substantial:

For me, these are going to be "long term holds" which, in Tim-land, means a couple or three months.