Just as a reminder, I'm going to be completely occupied by an all-morning meeting here in Palo Alto, so there won't be any new posts until after the close. Be prepared for the possibility of a very long set of comments.

Tomorrow morning's jobs report is the Big Kahuna, but for now, the market has seen enough to tip lower as I'm typing this. I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning, and the report was on the possibility of General Motors being unable to continue as a going concern. As much as we've all been through, it seems so odd to hear that on the radio. It would have been utterly unthinkable until recently.

As I've mentioned, my portfolio is no longer "pure bear", so that's definitely going to tamp down what would normally be a really good opening for me. In fact, as I was going through all my charts last night – – and I really want to emphasize this – – almost all the new opportunities were on the long side.

So, weak /ES notwithstanding, the kinds of trades I'm starting to line up are buys instead of shorts. And that, as with the GM story, probably seems really weird to you as well, considering who is typing this.

Good luck, and I'll see you after the close.

I'm short the /ES for a quick overnight trade; I've got a tight stop on this above 705.

Please note I'll be tied up in a meeting all morning so posts will be infrequent (or non-existent).

On a percentage basis, I only made a little bit of money today. I had a huge long position in OIH and USO from yesterday afternoon, and I sold those at a good profit, but that was pretty much it for me for the whole day. Most of those profits helped counterbalance reductions in value in puts and shorts. Netted out, today was a winner, but a teeny one.

I'm pretty pleased with today for a number of reasons:

• The aforementioned USO and OIH longs; that was a good call; if it weren't for those, today would have stung badly;
• My decisions to swiftly make a large number of long acquisitions early in the day, in spite of the gap up we had this morning. I have 37 long positions right now, a few of them pretty big;
• My willingness to go long the /ES after it broke above 715.25; mind you, this wasn't some huge score; but it helped;
• Far more importantly, my decision to close the /ES long as it approached 725 (I got out at 722.25); this trade lost air very quickly, and I got out at just about the perfect time (my entry, of course, would have been "perfect" last night in the high 600s, but I was short back then!);
• The fact I trimmed some shorts yesterday, thus reducing my exposure.

I have far more of a hedged portfolio now than I did a couple of days ago. Until recently, as I've said, I was extremely heavily bearish in my holdings. A day like today would have caused grievous harm. As it is now, I have a much more balanced portfolio.

The downside of that, of course, is that it's a lot more boring! So any big moves, up or down, are going to be greatly moderated by my position. But, giving the highly uncertain state (and, some would argue, the very oldsold condition), I'd rather be safe than sorry.