OK, I've got time for one last post before the market closes. NZD/USD bears close watching. I have found this to be a very interesting way to look for extremes in US equities, and it's really pushing the envelope right now.

With the market up in the triple digits (and why not? our banks are healthy!) I figured I would be getting mauled. But as I kept glancing at the sum total of my portfolio, I was down, but not by that much.

How come? At first I thought all the stupid stocks in my IRA were saving the day, but they really weren't up that much. Then I looked at my options screen (I have 43 put options) and expected to see a solid wall of red. Instead, there actually was a fair bit of green, and a few of them were doing pretty well on a day like this.

To any of us, the most important "indicator" is our own bottom line. It looks like, even today, some of the more bearish patterns are actually still managing to act that way. Like one of my oft-mentioned favorites.

Anyway, I really have to study, so I probably won't be doing another post until a one-sentence comment cleaner after the close. Thanks for understanding.

I have 28 long positions in my IRA, and although I view most of them with deep skepticism, there are a handful I actually consider "keepers." Here they are:

Well, the event in my life which will impact Slope today (it's not a body part) is the Series 65 examination. I'm taking it shortly after the close.

I've been studying for it with this absolutely dreadful book. The author seems to think he's terribly funny (in a knee-slapping, yuk-yuk kind of way), and I can't imagine any style more grating or distracting for a subject like this. Strangely, it's just about the only book on the topic. My dislike for the author's style was amplified by the fact that he suggests technical analysts are "fools." If somehow I manage to pass this test, I'm recycling this bad boy, pronto.

So the bottom line is that I'm going to disappear after the close for a long time; it won't matter quite as much, since you good people aren't quite the chatty Cathys you are on non-Fridays. But you've been warned.

As for the week as a whole, it looks like most indexes are going to put a 9th nail into their hoped-for bearish coffin. The $NDX might well be the exception.

The constitution of my portfolio (except for, sigh, the heroic and increasingly-irksome IRA) is tilted quite bearish, but the size of the portfolio is very muted. I don't have any honkin' big positions. The last nine weeks have taught me to really keep the risk tame, and until we've got an honest-to-God break (not a "gee this looks like it could break"), I'll continue to stay mild instead of wild.

First, I know that none of you could care less about all of you are terribly interested to hear about my little toe. Why wouldn't you be? Today's procedure did no good at all. The bones are still in the wrong place. So that means……….surgery! Yay! I've never had an incision in my life, and now this. My little toe is taking over my entire freakin' existence. I hate it.

And, yes, your life is affected too! Because some day soon, I am going to lose an entire day to surgery. That means I lose an entire day of trading, which is horrible (our "dancer" post earlier today notwithstanding). And it means you don't get any posts that day. And this isn't going to be one of those "I'll be on vacation so you won't get many posts", and I'm still at it every 90 minutes. I will be under sedation. I'll probably do something clever like schedule a bunch of comment cleaners that auto-deploy at certain times. So I'll be blogging while under sedation. Wow; that actually sounds pretty cool, now that I think of it.

The long-awaited fictitious nonsense from the government was spewed out after the close today, and, in true anti-climactic fashion, it doesn't seem like anyone cares. The /NQ (which I'm following much more closely these days) is up 0.75. Three-quarters of a single point. Whoop-de-freakin' do. So at least we don't have this sword hanging over our heads anymore. The jobs number in the morning will be the next mover.

Now, over the course of the last grueling, horrible 9 weeks of hell, there has been plenty of disappointment. Here are just a few examples of the "shoulda's" that got away……….

(a) We shoulda gone done since we broken a very clean trendline and a really good head and shoulders pattern was formed;
(b) We shoulda plunged from here since ending diagonal was fully retraced (thanks, EWT guys!);
(c) We shoulda fallen from here since we were at a major Fibonacci level and had, yet again, come alongside the underbelly of the broken trendline;
(d) We shoulda fallen here for roughly the same reasons as (c);

One eventually  throws his arms up and stops trying to figure out what's next. It's too frustrating and expensive.

The climb higher hasn't been clean, but it has been merciless. A nearly 40% rise in 9 weeks for a lumbering index like the S&P is bad enough, but there are hundreds and hundreds of stocks which have gone up hundreds and hundreds of percent in the same short span of time. I notice my detested superhero IRA portfolio has a bunch of double-digit gainers in the after-hours tonight again (such as KEY, which is actually a very interesting little chart).

Glancing over at my honkin' big Apple monitor, I see the /ES has bumped up to an 8 point gain. The real question will be what Friday holds. We haven't had two black candles on the S&P in an entire month! So today's 100-point tumble on the Dow might be just another in a series of one-hit wonders or, God forbid, a true inflection point for something more meaningful.

If you're bearish and are desperate for something to cling to, here's a chart of the $NDX you might like. It combines two very interesting things: (a) a very big down-candle which broke the trendline established for this entire rally; (b) on very impressive volume. Indeed, it was over double the volume on the QQQQ compared to last Friday.

My toe and I shall now take our leave. Be careful. And don't run into any doors. Only a real moron would do something like that.