The Start Of A New Decade

Today is the beginning of a new decade for me.  I put out a list of 39 things I wanted to accomplish on my 39th year on this earth and I am proud to say that I completed most of them over the year.  Now on to a new decade of my life and more adventures to come.

Thank you to everyone who followed me on my crazy "driving around the USA in my tent adventures" for the past year, and the year before that.  It was an incredible few years and I hope to experience many more things to come.  As I did before, I will compile a list and share that with you.

As I mentioned, the past three years I have been wandering around the country with my dog, camera and tent.  I made the decision to go back to school for a year to see where that takes me.  I am always up for learning and it will keep me in the same place for a while.  This doesn't mean that I won't take a break for adventures here and there.  I plan to continue this roller coaster ride called life.

I look forward to more and sharing it here with you.

Meltdown started when Fukushima explosions occured...

Of course, that was not reported...and according to the general press and officials the meltdown has not happened yet and is only partial.

Who can you believe? Certainly not the the officials or our administration. Libya seems to make a good alternate headlines to the dangerous headlines that should have been coming out of Japan and all over our news regarding Fukushima and the humanitarian crisis it is creating.

Candidate Obama vs Cronyist Obama - take your pick

The constitution, what's that? The Budget, who cares? - Barrack Obama


Excuse me while I transfer the Libyan operation to myself on Wednesday...

Dr. Kevin Patterson on Western Diets and Health

A few readers have pointed me to an interesting NPR interview with the Canadian physician Kevin Patterson (link). He describes his medical work in Afghanistan and the Canadian arctic treating cultures with various degrees of industrialization. He discusses the "epidemiological transition", the idea that cultures experience predictable changes in their health as they go from hunter-gatherer, to agricultural, to industrial. I think he has an uncommonly good perspective on the effects of industrialization on human health, which tends to be true of people who have witnessed the effects of the industrial diet and lifestyle on diverse cultures.

A central concept behind my thinking is that it's possible to benefit simultaneously from both:

• The sanitation, medical technology, safety technology, law enforcement and lower warfare-related mortality that have increased our life expectancy dramatically relative to our distant ancestors.


• The very low incidence of obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease and other non-infectious chronic diseases afforded by a diet and lifestyle roughly consistent with our non-industrial heritage.

But it requires discipline, because going with the flow means becoming unhealthy.

Bullish. Bullish. Bullish....yeah, yeah, yeah - not so fast!

Few people seem to take a stand when it comes to the markets and to attempt to be honest about that stand. I absolutely stand by my post of last Friday exactly as it was written. Nothing for me has changed. The reason that I gave the market till the first few days of this week was that the most likely scenario for my systems is to take more than one entry into a trade.  The Russell 2000 system had only one entry short as of the close last Friday. At least one or two more entries seemed logical. Today we got the third short entry for that system and the largest size entry so far in the trade. If I am end up being wrong, then I tried and I will probably not going have great performing trades here. I have a few points I would like to make before I have to go out to a meeting.

1. Volume was incredibly light in the professional futures markets.
2. The S&P500 sold off after large trades hit bid near the highs...while shorts continued to get squeezed in the Russell and the Mid Caps.
3. There were a lot of small size trades lifting the asks this afternoon in the Russell. These traders are mot likely setting themselves up for disappointment.
4. Everyone can now clearly see the the sell off was a wave 4 - which it most probably was not.
5. The dollar held its ground and bonds are not confirming equities.
6. The NASDAQ 100 has many many components that are clearly putting in a-b-c wave counter trend pushes.
7. Most Elliott wavers are looking for the infamous wave 5 and then then really really infamous wave 3 down. They will most likely not be in either trade successfully.
8. Volume really sucked (oh, I said that)
9. VIX not comfirming market highs.
10. Copper not rallying.
11. Stops were taken out and markets diverged literally one going up while the other was going down. Selling was also stronger than people are asuming on the nasdaq and s&p500. Confusion amongst the markets is not a sign of a strong market.
12. Financials are NOT performing
13. I have major cycles short on the Euro and long on the Dollar
14. A perfect A-B-C symmetry and major trend line was hit on the Russell - dead nut.
15. Same trend line off highs also was sold on the S&P500.
16. The consensus has everyone looking up because this market defies logic and the patterns look enticing...nothing like a well laid trap!

I view it, that out of a market seemingly able to ignore every rational interpretation of risk and reward, confidence is way too high and a major crash is pending

In accordance with this, I am now nicely short.

Two charts from a few days ago...setup is playing out...

Looks like a some sort of flat on the Russell and S&P...to the upper targets. What a whacked out market.

Where we stand...

Today's rally made very little rational sense, as is common of all things in the markets, was on low volume and certainly has pushed the envelope for the end of the month window dressing...as I see it, for each stretch to the upside to correponding pressure downward will increase...nothing has changed with regard to any of the comments I made on friday last week. I had not necessarily expected to get more entries into the current trades...but I wanted to share the current trades we are in for the Russell 2000 and S&P500, in case it may be helpful in these crazy times.