Well, I'm here at the Marriott Courtyard in Sandy, Utah……..what truly must be the world's most nondescript hotel. It's past one in the morning, and as you can imagine, this isn't going to be a long post.
Indeed, I spent most of the trip out here wondering what's the matter with me. Almost everything I see, I find horrifying. Whether it's the occupations people have, or what's on the television, or what is being advertised in the magazines. My sheltered existence lets me see most things with fresh eyes, and it's rarely an enjoyable experience.
The icing on the cake was when I finally arrived here in Sandy ("Gateway to Draper") and, out of sheer desperation, swung by a Denny's to pick up some kind of coffee beverage. I was confronted with this poster in the cigarette-stinking entrance:
Well, I might as well just slit my wrists and hop into a warm tub right now. Denny's is suggesting that, for that special anniversary, you reward your mother and father with a gift card. ("Hey, Dad, I hear the Grand Slam is terrific!") I don't think they'd ever speak to me again.
Anyway………the market and me. It's pretty simple:
- I've been doing really, really well lately. I would be doing super-well if I didn't have a hedged portfolio, but that would be just foolish. So my longs have been "holding me back", but protection is what they're there for.
- SRS has been very plainly a superstar lately.
- Tightening stops is very time-consuming, but very important.
I was a little dismayed to see fellow blogger Atilla cover his short on the ES and go long (even though I did the same thing, briefly). But I must remind myself that my analysis is my own, and I can't let any one opinion be overly influential. Frankly, the only outside influence to which I give an exorbitant amount of weight these days is RetracementLevels.com; it has simply been too accurate and useful to ignore.
That's it for me. I need to be up in a few hours. Godspeed.
