Right now, the indexes don't excite me that much. Even if you're quite bearish, it's hard to squeeze much more out of the likes of the S&P. Don't get me wrong – – I'm short the /ES modestly – – but to me, that's not really where the action is.

I have found many, many opportunities on the short side, and quite a few of these stocks have ample room to fall (unlike, say, the Dow 30, which has been beaten to a pulp). It will help if indexes fall hard, of course, but I'm not necessarily counting on their aid.

I will say, however, that Exxon is a valuable bellwether – perhaps even moreso than a big index. Take a look at this long-term graph, spanning pretty much my lifetime.

Pretty amazing stock, isn't it? It did breach that very long-term trendline briefly last year, but it has recovered now; let's take a closer look.

If XOM can break below $73, that will help the bearish case overall. This is a gigantic stock, and it has a huge influence on the major indexes. It's worth your attention.

I'm "blogged out" for the day, so I'm heading to bed. I'll see you in the morning, and I hope we can get some more fireworks on Thursday and Friday before my big ski week coming up.

I'm about to head out to dinner with the family, so I'll do a real post later tonight. I'll just say a few words for now.

As most of you know, I really enjoy the work of the folks at Elliott Wave Intl., and lately they've been firmly behind their belief that the market is in the early throes of its final wave 5 downward before higher-degree wave 1 down is complete. In other words, the game plan is to soon plunge below last year's lows before the market is finally in a position to enjoy a sustained, multi-month countertrend rally. Here's a chart from their update tonight, used with permission:

Compared to yesterday, today was a total bore. I updated all my positions, and I entered about 30 new short positions. Look at Short Equities (1 of 3) to see where all these new positions wound up.

I'm honored at all the traffic and comment activity on the site. Keep it up!

They tried……….God knows they tried, but they lost. We got our sub-8,000 close. Two days in a row. First time in over five years! OK, that's all I have time for (seriously!) but I'll do a post tonight.

I'm tied up for the rest of the day. I'll do a quick market update this evening. If the PTB push this above 8,000, I'm going wig out. Anyway……good luck.

Unless something really surprising happens (examples: Dennis Kneale saying something intelligent; Abby Joseph Cohen making a profitable trading recommendation; etc.) it looks like we're going to………for the first time since 2003!……….close below 8,000 on the Dow for two days in a row. This is getting interesting.