On such a powerful day for the stock market it was a no-brainer that there would not be any shorts to take today. However, what is a bit concerning for those that believe we have “the bottom” here is the fact that there were still plenty of stocks in both of my short scans. This was more-than-likely due to the options expiration but even then with the stock market up so much I did not expect to see 30 and 40 plus stocks each on both scans. That was more than I would have thought on an up 2% day. Another problem for the “this is THE bottom” bulls is that I only had 8 full covers out of 50 plus shorts (they are ALL small positions as I only have 20% of my account short). This combined with the very weak leadership in tobacco, small banks, savings & loans, business services, and food & beverage is very troubling for those that are ever-so-confident that this is “THE bottom.” You know, I will get bullish on the VERY short-term as I do have quite a few nice charts out there in the stocks that are doing well. But still after a month to three months of gains, how in the heck this market can hold up is beyond me. The problems underneath are so obvious it doesn’t matter what macro data chart you look at; they are all extremely ugly and bearish. There are very few NEU, XIDE, VLNC, SVT, BKE, LSR, MCF, and BRKR looking charts out there that are setting up in proper bases that I am looking forward to load-up on in the future. There, still, is simply NOTHING out there that I am not already long. When we are at a true bottom, there are going to be so many darn stocks to pick from including a couple of handfuls of near-perfect to perfect charts that will be either setting up or breaking out of perfect bases. There is no need to load-up here and scream and yell that the bottom has come and gone. The market has given us a follow-through day but before I get too excited I am going to need to see the indexes take out the 50 day moving averages on very strong volume. If we can confirm this follow-through day, within the next few days, then I will get VERY bullish on the short and intermediate term; keeping a longer-term bearish bias. Aloha and I will see you on Monday where the last thing the bulls will want to see is an IMMEDIATE distribution day like we got yesterday. WHAT A WILD MARKET! CASH IS DEFINITELY KING!!
new short positions: none
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