Let me assure you of something: there are a lot of very ticked-off e-mini traders right now. Bull or bear, it doesn't matter, you can count on a lot of fury. Let me explain.

If you scroll down yesterday's last post to the comments around 1:00 a.m. EST, you'll see a bevy of people (including me) wondering what on earth just happened to the e-minis. They jumped a huge amount instantly, and no one could figure out what was going on.

And now, as we approach the opening bell, the e-mini markets are lower than they were any time the prior day! In other words……..

• BEARS who were short the /ES or the /NQ probably got stopped-out (or panicked and closed themselves out) when the e-minis suddenly and inexplicably jumped higher than at the very highest points Wednesday. They took a loss, and just to add to the pain, they would have a nice fat profit had they not exited their positions; and
• BULLS who were delighted to see their positions pop higher overnight have seen these gains completely wither away into losses.

In other words, unless you were a bearish trader in these highly-leveraged instruments who decided to throw caution to the wind and have no stop price, you're probably spitting mad right now.

Did anyone ever figure out what all that was about? I haven't seen anything like it in a while.

It always puts my panties in a bunch when I read a financial prognosticator state that there are two possibilities: (a) the market will go up; or (b) the market will go down. Unfortunately, this is one of those times I am going to be the one guilty of panties-bunching.

I usually fire up the /ES, but let's have a change of pace tonight and bring up the /NQ instead. First, let's take this interpretation:

So you probably get the general idea – – the yellow tinted area shows an area of consolidation which, when completed, simply allowed the market to launch to a higher level. Pushing past last Friday's highs would give strong indications that this was in store for us.

You can subject the same graph to a very different interpretation, however, as shown here:

In this instance, we very plainly broke the trendline with Monday's tumble, and the high from earlier this month was the high for the countertrend rally.

I truly don't know which one of these it is. My re-entering the world of "lottery longs" in my 401-K account shows that I am willing to put some money on the notion of higher prices, yet my other accounts are 100% unadulterated bear.

I'm in meetings the rest of the day and will be flying back to my briefly-interrupted vacation late tonight, so I won't see you until the morning. Good night!

I am waiting at the Reno International Airport for the first time in my life. I think all the tackiest billboards on the planet come here to die. If you ever need to know the "gentlemen's" clubs in town, this is the place to find out. Sheesh.

Anyway, I had time for a quick post before I hop on my flight. USO has been pretty much all day, in spite of the market's overall strength, which only amplifies my faith in it as a short position. I think there's plenty of downside yet to go.

Good luck with the FOMC. I'll only find out what's happening once I land.

Having gone through several hundred "wrecks" last night, I've smoked out 21 specific lottery plays. Here they are, along with their stops (for newer readers, these are high-risk, cheap, long positions).

ABR 1.58
AGM 4.34
BC 3.35
CPE 1.64
CVGI .93
FMCN 6.17
FMD 1.61
FRG 3.09
GAP 3.79
GRB 1.78
LEA .74
LEE .49
TOMO 2.34
WNR 6.46
XIDE 2.84
ZQK 1.66
ARAY 6.58
CMZ 1.07
GLG 3.78
SYMX .97
XRM .93

Please note I am going to be on an airplane this morning and busy with meetings this afternoon, so posts will be few and far between. Thanks.