Save Our Bears

How much longer can we punish these under-water bruisers?

While we haven't yet seen any important break yet in the major indices, action is toppy today and the internals negative enough to suggest things won't likely improve before this session is concluded.

Bears are breathing again.

If we surprise and manage to reverse today, it would be important and I would go back to keying long leadership. Without that, it is a question of how dark things shade today and ultimately then what amount of downside follow-through we'll see tomorrow.

I was able to slide myself short here without much damage and at the moment I'm positioned well for the present action. If things deteriorate more dramatically I will begin letting go the long-end of my position, otherwise I am looking for where to add to the right names and when to let go of hedges. Below 810 on the SP500 I would be less ambitious to be buying or adding to longs; below 775 on the SP500, I expect I would be aggressively short.

I sold the IOC today on the positive discovery-news; I added to a winning ARST position on the low-volume slice lower; I have been working RJI and almost finished reducing to ~4%. Keep up on the feedTwitt if you please - just don't do anything I do (at least not because I am doing it).

I'm working on an updated working list for individual shorts, which should be posted by tonight at latest.

Total Position: 1.75-to-1 net long, 83% invested
(Note: though the position is technically net-long, it is leaning notably short, due to leverage of the 2x's short-hedges)

Currently Long (according to size): PMCS, ARST, WNR, NFLX, CHKP, LFT, RJI, MYGN, MNRO, TSYS, DIOD, DRI

Currently Short (according to size): TWM-long (Russell-2k Dbl-short), SDS-long (SP500 Dbl-short), GE, SRS-long (US Real Est. Dbl-short), ELOS, EGO
(Note: inverse-ETFs TWM, SDS and SRS represent being dbl-short the respective indices)

Bearing the Pain

Bears are feeling it still. I don't want to be a bear as long as it looks like this.

Like it or not, the market is behaving well today; notably resilient on the heels of this week's blast-up.

I reduced yesterday's (new) shorts as a result, and while some of the exit points were poor relative to the day's range, these were presumed hedges; when they were closer to profitable I was holding out of necessity but ultimately unloaded when it was clear they couldn't hold their own water.

Accounts here are still positive today (so far) and this is because the leadership longs are making up for negative recent short trades.

That and a nice entry into DIOD long in the opening minutes.

These blaring-ugly trades can be laughed at via the Twittfit on the right >>> Notice how long my losses are held, relative to gainers. Even if I'm full-out pathetic with fresh-fires, I'm rarely ruined because I keep my broken clocks telling the right time and throw out anything worse.

If I brush aside everything I might think and simplify matters, the simple truth is that 1.) the market is consolidating softly and quietly, which is constructive action; while 2.) Bellwether GS has so far managed to re-take its 200-day moving average today (>115.27); and 3.) when I put on shorts it feels a lot like a pitchfork in my skull, while my long positions have been basically printing money.

That last part is relevant to me and I weight that that highly when analyzing protection, aggression and whether I'll be buying a last-minute plane deal to Boca Bora this weekend; get out to the water for alternative thrills and kills.

I'll be hunting more live longs by scouring the charts this weekend (from whatever location I find myself). The market still behaves like a bull at moment and I'll continue to treat it that way until the bears finally turn this fork around.

Last weekend's list of leadership longs can be viewed here in the meantime.

Total Position: 3.42-to-1 net long, 73% invested

Currently Long (according to size): RJI, PMCS, WNR, NFLX, ARST, CHKP, LFT, MYGN, MNRO, TSYS, DIOD, DRI, IOC

Currently Short (according to size): NTRS, RSH, ELOS, EGO