I confess, I’m growing a little weary of having to steel myself ahead of the market. There will come a
day when this is easy again, and where shooting bulls in the head is a cinch. Recent days are not included in this descriptor, but today turned out much better than I expected.
When I saw that Summers had (probably wisely) decided not to take what is destined to be the worst job in the whole world, I really didn’t give it a second thought. I had no earthly idea that the market despised him as much as it did. When the ES opened up +17, I thought it was a data error, and usually I have an acute sense as to why the market is doing what it’s doing. When it was up over 20, I was flabbergasted, and I was bracing myself for a Monday of utter suckitude. I had, after all, more shorts than Paris Hilton has positive STD test results, so it was not going to be pleasant.
There’s no need to go through the blow-by-blow. The bottom line is that, by the end of the day, the NQ was well into the red, the ES had lost way more than half of its overnight gains, and although the day was a loser for me, it was a very manageable loser, as opposed to the unabashed slashing I was concerned I would experience.
To tell you the truth, I was pretty serene about the whole thing, even on Sunday. Maybe after all these years I’ve grown numb to bears getting shot between the eyes, or maybe I’m sensing that the insanity has reached an inflection point. After all, once Monday was done, the entire Summers thing was a joke, and perhaps it’s starting to dawn on the market that it’s time to cash in its chips.
What I will say, however, is that Wednesday is probably going to be a repeat of this same thing. I don’t even care what the Fed says at this point. The market will take whatever Bernanke spews as bullish, and the ES will puke higher. What happens in the hours that follow, however, will be far more telling.
And with that, I shall take my leave. I am considering doing another book, and it’s an utterly different style of writing for me. I’m not sure I’m up to it, but I’m going to dip my toe in the water tonight.
