I am typing this on my iPhone having survived the stupid and idiotic passport control morons. My contempt for all government employees has now reached depths I thought unimaginable. Only the slowest, stupidest, and most inept excuses for humans work for the government. At the other end of the spectrum are small business owners. And there are a whole host of categories in between.
At least the market got clobbered today and my plane imprisonment did me no harm. I now fly to San Francisco. I will do a new post Wednesday morning. And yes, this was all tapped out on a iPhone.
Government. Employees. Suck.

In the airport, looking at fantastic charts, and getting ready for my plane prison where I cannot access anything.

Good-bye, Jamaica. "No problem, mon!" You don't understand. I like problems.

Farewell, Slopers. Good luck with the rest of your day.

There are two bad things about today for me: (1) Principal Financial Group, which is where, unfortunately, my IRA is held against its will, is still completely down. How can a brokerage be down for an entire week? So my stops are getting increasingly stale. I'm ready to strangle those guys. (2) I'm going to be on a plane most of the trading day, which for me is sheer torture.

For you, as a reminder, that means there won't be any more blog posts, except for maybe a quick comment cleaner after the close. So it's going to be pretty much an "all comments" day.

I'm having a good morning so far, but you never know how these things are going to turn out. And, OK, fine, I admit, I went ahead and bought some FAZ below $10 this morning, but I bought a sensible amount this time!

Good luck with your trading day, everyone. I'm looking forward to returning to Slope Normal tomorrow morning.

Date: Autumn 2009. On the left side of the screen: Slopers. On the right: Everyone Else.

As the countertrend market defrauds its way higher, there are a number of camps of thinking developing among people involved in the stock market: (note: I have provided new labels to a couple of these since apparently some folks just can't deal with things that aren't completely vanilla.)

• The Permabears: these are the folks that were spoiled rotten by the fantastic plunge from September 20th 2008 to March 9 2009 and have been fighting the uptrend ever since. The quick profits from bear market action are seductive, and it's understandable that folks would want to return to the Good Old Days (that is, a few months ago), but they're going to see (or already have seen) their profits disappear.
• The New Permabulls: this represents the vast majority of the normal investing public. Simply stated, they have no idea what they are doing, and they have benefited mightily from the past five weeks. This is the group that is going to be the most helpful setting up the new leg – – the big one – – of the bear market later this year. The market is seducing and tantalizing them right now. And, boy, does it feel good! All those nasty losses they suffered in 2008 are being chiseled away, day by day. Heck, maybe they've even bought some banking stocks that have gone up triple digits! And of course, with Obama on their side, they know they can sit back, relax, and enjoy the Recovery. I cannot wait to devour these people.
• Those Waiting for Godot: these are the folks that would otherwise have been Bear-Hards but have had the good sense to get out of the way. They know the market's rise is B.S., and they know the bear market will return at some point. But they are patiently waiting for the right time.
• The Premature Anticipations: here we have the group that keeps assuming The Top Is In, and they keep shorting the market (I have occasionally been a member of this group). The market has seduced them into what seem like good short positions, and then blammo, their wallet is emptied, and the cash has been magically transferred into the hip pocket of a wily bull.
• The Pushmi-Pullyus: This is the camp in which I consider myself – – I recognize the rally is B.S., but I want to profit from it. At the same time, I want to be positioned for the bear market, and as we push higher, I am seeing more and more bearish opportunities. However, the bullish push has, to date, been stronger than the bearish mini-drops, so over the past five weeks, this positioning is a very distant second from that of the New Permabulls, who have been raking it in.

There are some Slopers who seem to have been doing a fantastic job profiting from the push upward. I know moo is quite deft, and I see TraderTamas doing quite well too. I will make this as plain as I can: I have, over the past month, been far, far too bearish. I've had a lot of the "Premature Anticipation" problem, and between bad /ES trades and my FAZ debacle, I've – – umm – – "balanced" the very nice gains I've enjoyed in my long positions.

Funny enough, the portfolios I manage each fall into a different camp. My personal portfolio has been in the permabear camp, and it hasn't budged this year. Whatever gains I enjoyed during the January and February tumble had been given back. My "big account" has been quite consistently Pushmi-Pullyu, and it is growing, but at a snail's pace. My IRA has been completed bullish, and it seems to reach a new high pretty much every day. I'm up a solid 33% so far this year in that account, and that's after having a lousy beginning of the year too!

So it all really boils down to – – – if you see the fools winning, do you want to join them or fight them? It's clear that recently being with the fools is the smart place to be. I read on Evil today mole say something like "I'd rather be rich than right." Me too.

Patience is not one of my strong suits, and I'm fighting myself every day to tell myself that the top of the countertrend is probably several months away. I practically have to slap my hand away from the keyboard. Funny enough, the fact that Principal Brokerage is (still!) down helped me today, since I kept my grubby paws off of all the stupid little positions in that account, and it reached a new high. At the same time, there are still charts appearing which seem to be setting up as juicy shorts (with relatively close stops, just in case they want to become even juicier from higher levels).

I'll probably have time for no more than one or two posts tomorrow. I will be in the air virtually the entire day. So prepare yourselves for a very long comment thread!