Well, I’ve been in “retreat and regroup” mode today. I’ve scaled back to 20% cash, 60% shorts, 20% longs, and 0% margin. The jobs report tomorrow morning is a big, looming uncertainty.

I just wanted to share a trio of ETFs and some thoughts on each.

First, the past year of the DIA illustrates quickly and simply the “grind” we’ve all been going through. It is astonishing to me how trendless this market has been for such a long amount of time. The bulls and bears just keep shoving each other back and forth. The only party happy in this market are the brokers, thanks to their commissions. At the current price level, we are definitely in “no one knows what’s next” mode.

I’ve had pretty good luck with individual retail stocks lately, and the recent recovery in RTH might be a good short set-up if the jobs figures doesn’t blast the market higher tomorrow. I personally have zero large short positions right now. My only large position at all is IWM, on the long side.

Lastly, there is the all-important financials. This chart is screaming “potential breakdown”, but until it slashes below that lower price level, this is nothing more than the range from hell.

Slopers know all too well there is a direct correlation between my participation in comments and frequency of posts to how I’m doing in the market. Things have stunk the past couple of days, so I have been laying low. I think this post will wrap it up for me today, and we’ll see what tomorrow morning brings us. As things stand now, I have positions that will profit from either direction, but I am not strongly committed either way.