Thank God It's Friday - Signed, The Bulls

The market rallied on the close simply because......

....it didn't spectacularly crash!

THAT was the only bullish catalyst of the day/week.

I hate to get pulled into these pontifical debates but here goes.

What will be the sign that the market has bottomed?

Extreme bearishness?

How exactly do we quantify that?

How about high volume for a bottom signal? Lots of big mouth bears are demanding to see a volume spike before they cover their shorts.

Yes, IMO, the market is awash in negativity. BUT, it's also fully warranted.

Layoffs are just starting to happen. So many people, so many businesses, consumers, and *governments*, have been drunk with denial for the past year or so, that the backlog of pain is enormous.

This economic retrenchment isn't just trimming a little fat out of our lifestyles.

It's slaughtering herds of pigs! It's wiping out entire industries.

E.g., auto, banking, malls, student lending, retailers, restaurants, home improvement, REITs,...,hedgefunds.

[The VIX is an important, if difficult to time, sentiment indicator. Ignore the *put/call ratio* and any Moron citing it.]

I myself am not worrying about *the bottom*; I'm not drawing lines on historical charts; I'm not polling hack mutual fund managers; nor am I proffering examples of bear market rallies in the 1930s.

I simply watch the tape and try to identify good short term risk/reward bets.

Today the market tried to rally on the open but failed.

And why exactly wouldn't it, fail that is?

This morning I wisely bought FAZ at 92.50 (down 7 bucks right off the bat) and made four points in 14 minutes.



While my entry point was heroic, my exit was more than a little wussy. This crazy ETF rallied all the way up to 115.50 later in the day!

A 92.50 FAZ spoke to me. It said, "Buy me, I'm 5 points of downside risk versus 10 points of potential upside."

Today I also added to my EEV position at 60.20.

And I initiated a new *double short* ETF position. This time taking aim at China.

I bought a smidgen of FXP at 41.72 - for starters anyway.

Lastly, as the market rallied at the close, I had to watch SRS, my biggest position, fall apart:



Yeah, from 110.00 to 100.00 in the last 30 minutes....that took a substantive chunk out of my paper gains for the day.

Undaunted, I bought some more at 99.00 after the close.

Do any of y'all expect good news on Monday?

Didn't think do.

For Friday's song we're going with THE *wage slave* ballad:



And for the *proprietors* like Slow Rion: