Hi Everyone,
I went from posting-and-commenting-constantly (Wednesday) to disappearing-altogether (last couple of days). The reason is simple…….my all-short portfolio got hit hard in the face yesterday, and I've been thinking and repositioning ever since.
It was hardly a knockout punch. Due to my relatively conservative nature (compared to late '08 Tim, at least), I was down about 3.7%, but that is a very nasty loss for me on a daily basis, so Thursday was not the least bit pleasant.
As I mentioned earlier, I have acquired a number of badly-battered stocks, and I've gone even lighter on the bear side. The unsettling reality I am accepting is that the knock-em, sock-em, bear-blast of May has sputtered out, and we may be back to the pain-in-the-neck waiting game of before. Similar to Springheel Jack's post from this morning, I'm thinking we might be in for something like this:
Yes, I know this is the oh-so-obvious H&S everyone is talking about, but frankly I have no problem with obvious. What's important for me is not to get seduced into the attractive notion of a quick and brutal bear market. I get the sense more than a few people on the blog share my impatience, and that impatience can lead one to a bias that is unhelpful. I'd rather open my eyes up to the possibility of a market that calls for a lot more patience than is typical for me. Judging from how quickly the market recovered from this morning's wretched retail report, it seems altogether possible to me that the bulls are starting to wrest control away again.
