Blink, You Lose

I am at the point of annoyance with this rally now. Obviously part of the reason is because I have not participated as much as I want as of late, but the other reason is because I feel like there is optimism to the point of stupidity now propping up stocks. We pulled back from 930 as one may "expect" to happen and I had nice paper profits because of it, however I literally had to make those moves in the morning and sell in the afternoon because by the end of today they were right back where they were yesterday. It's ridiculous, a 20% range in the XLF in 2 days. My nearly perfect entry points were undone today. I only lost about a third of my gains from yesterday which is fine in general but had I just exited again at the close yesterday I would have given back nothing and gained a lot more.

Of course I am frustrated being on the wrong side of constant optimism, if I were totally long I would love if I had bought at the bottom yesterday. I know the market operates on psychology of humans which are at times irrational which in my opinion is partially why it can be exploited for gain. However, I feel like people are going over board. We have had signs of recovery, not even positive growth again at all and stocks most notably some financials are near old highs.

The S&P did finish below 930, barely but wasn't as weak as I had hoped, in fact it ifinished on its highs but did not break out. I am only sitting on a small loss now on my puts but it is so frustrating to see a large gain turn into a loss. I feel like we will rally the beginning of next week so I get sucked out of my positions, and people get pulled into calls, then pull back so those calls become worthless.

Alright enough bitching, in terms of my positions CHK was the big winner today but was more than canceled out by my put positions...but limited my losses. Going into next week if we rally I will lighten up my longs because they are getting closer to my targets. That reversal day failed to follow through if we finish above 930 I feel like 950 is the next logical level and it could happen in a day if it does. Overall I am making steady progress higher even if it isn't as fast as before I still am taking low risk entries, there were a couple I looked at today but didn't take ahead of the weekend. If financials continue higher into next week I'll have to buy back my short calls as no bearish position seems safe in this market environment.

Total Return for 2009: 148%