Has the following ever happened to you? – – You are speaking with someone, and every time you start to speak, he speaks. You both stop. Then you both start to try to speak again, only to stop again. It is, at once, annoying and amusing. Sometimes the same thing happens when you're at an intersection, and someone else is at the same 4-way stop, and the two of you keep inching forward, urging the other to go.

By and large, humans are in synch with each other. We can carry on rapid-fire conversations with the ease and grace of a good tennis match. But once in a great while, we encounter a person who, for whatever reason, is completely "in-phase" with us (in a bad way!) and with whom a normal conversation seems impossible.

It's that way with the market. My desire is to be "in synch" with it. If the market is up, and you have a bad day – – – and then the market is down, and you have another bad day – – it's a miserable feeling.

A day like today is quite the opposite. Because here's the remarkable set of facts:

1. I entered today 100% short. Not 99%. 100%. One. Hundred. Percent.
2. And I'm making fat profits!

How is this possible? Because (a) I harvested my profits on any positions I felt had petered out, and luckily I did so before the rally really kicked in; (b) more importantly, I had precious metal shorts up the yin-yang, and gold just took a big ol' dump today. I got rid of about 50 positions, so the quantity of entries I have in MarketMatrix has gone from ridiculous to just silly.

This is a good feeling. I'm in synch. And I want to stay in synch.

As a side note, once the /ES rallied back to 774, I shorted the it like mad. We'll see if Obama's speech tonight confirms the usefulness of the patented EZ Investment Guide.

Shazam.

The good news, for bears, about today's rally is that it will:

1. Get us away from the "an 8th lower close is almost impossible" crowd, by virtue of closing up for the day; and
2. Provide some relief on some very oversold conditions.

I am de-lighted with my precious metal shorts today.

My puts on XLU have been – – as Garett Morris' character on SNL used to say – – "veddy veddy good to me." But I've been tightening stops and taking some profits today. One of these positions on which I am taking profits is XLU, which I will re-enter at a more favorable time.

Alright then. Two of 'em. Both had my father in 'em . It's peculiar.
I'm older now then he ever was by twenty years. So in a sense he's the
younger man.

Anyway, first one I don't remember too well but it was
about meetin' him in town somewhere, he's gonna give me some money. I
think I lost it.

The second one, it was like we was both back in older
times and I was on horseback goin' through the mountains of a night.
Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was
snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said
nothin' goin' by. He just rode on past… and he had his blanket
wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he
was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see
the horn from the light inside of it. 'Bout the color of the moon.

And
in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to
make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold. And
I knew that whenever I got there he would be there.

And then I woke up.

Far and away my largest cash short is in precious metals; here are a few examples.

I've got both silver and gold shorts, and I've entered them at good prices (e.g. last week and yesterday). I think these have a very, umm, bright future ahead.