Here are some short ideas, with stop-loss prices.

AGN 42.75
BAX 55.32
BDX 73.75
MICC 51.51
NOC 49.88
SBAC 19.87
YUM 33.24 

The trendless market continues plodding along. At this very moment, the S&P is trading where it was back on October 10th, and even though 13 weeks have transpired since then (and several lifetimes of financial history have been made during those historic weeks), it's stunning that we're still grinding along at the same level.

I've tinted my view of the range into which we seem bound, with a couple of outlier areas in blue. I think this helps clarify where we stand at the moment.

Maintaining a long/short portfolio is tricky, but to my mind, it's necessary. I am not comfortable committing myself fully bearish or bullish. This is a stockpicker's market, and as much labor as may be involved, hand-picking issues carefully satisfies the capital preservation (and occasional jumps in equity value) that I seek, even though it dampens returns on big up or down days.

With all the crooks, nitwits, and morons running around ruining the country these days (just bring to mind the senior management of any bank), it's heartening to read about Captain Sullenberger, who safely landed the crippled US Airways jet on the Hudson.

After his plane was hit in both engines (by geese, it's said), he had the presence of mind to glide the plane out of the heavily-populated Bronx and landed it perfectly on the Hudson River. Not a single of the 155 people perished. Here's more:

Sullenberger's mailbox at the firm was full on Thursday. A group of fans sprang up on Facebook within hours of the emergency landing.

"OMG, I am terrified of flying but I would be happy to be a passenger on one of your aircraft!!" Melanie Wills in Bristol wrote on the wall of "Fans of Sully Sullenberger." "You have saved a lot of peoples lives and are a true hero!!"

The pilot "did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and he assures us there was not."

"He was the last one up the aisle and he made sure that there was nobody behind him."

I can only imagine if someone with the morality of a bank CEO was piloting the plane, he would have taken all the wallets of the passengers, grabbed his parachute, and jumped out. Thank God there are people like Captain Sullenberger around. It's nice to have someone to admire these days.

We've come full circle this week. 860 used to be support; we cut through it, and fell hard to 812.75. Now we're back (in the wee hours) to nearly 860 again.

I finally got a chance to go through my charts last night, and although I'm far from wild-eyed bullish, here are some long ideas I'm considering, for a change: AA, AAPL, ACL, AG, AMG, ARD, ATI, ATW, BIDU, BUCY, CAT, CMG, CNQ, DNR, ERTS, EXPE, FCX, GNK, HAL, IR, ITW, LS, MEE, NFX, NOV, PCX, POT, RGLD, RS, SLB, STT, SU, TXT, SO

One thing I've noticed is that, with the exception of just a single very tiny span of time (November 20-21), there is a range of support spanning almost four months among the indexes; the value varies, naturally – – in the case of the Dow, it is around 8000 to 8200.

Indeed, we've been trapped in a 1,000 point range (with a few outlier exceptions) since early October. Traders on both sides of the aisle are surely getting weary of this. Given this history, odds favor a push higher, since that's the nature of support. But as we saw with 860 on the S&P earlier this week, if support does give way, prices fall very rapidly.

If we do get some strength, I expect it will hit some serious resistance at 8400, a mere 200 points from here.