- Somebody strapped the market to a snowboard today and shoved it down the slopes. I'm sure there are lots of ways to make excuses for it... (keep reading).
- First excuse... "Well, the market ran up too fast earlier in January, we had too much bullishness, and we're just getting some healty profit taking and consolidation." Rebuilding the "Wall of Worry."
- Kobe just can't do it all by himself for the Los Angeles Lakers. As a news reporter said here this morning, "It's Kobe Bryant and 4 guys named Smush." Kobe's having a great year, though. It does seem as if he's just trying to rack up stats.
- Second excuse... "Iran is spooking the market and driving oil prices higher, this will hurt consumers. Especially those who shop at Wal-Mart."
- Have you tried Pita Chips? They're low-fat pita bread that are baked or something. The problem I'm having, is how to figure out if they're stale or not? I don't think one can tell.
- This weekend? Netflix'd a few. "The Island." I don't have high expectations going in, so I hopefully will enjoy it. And Season 2 Disc 1 of Battlestar Galactica. Boomer came out of the closet and showed Adama (bang!) that she's a Cylon. Will Adama survive? Of course, the series is already in season 3, so don't spoil it for me.
- Third excuse... "Earnings by Yahoo and Intel show that the economy is slowing, and that all these over-owned big caps are going to be sold hard. If you own anything, own a bunch of small cap 4-letter tickers that nobody has ever heard of, but promise to do something interesting someday with energy or semiconductors somewhere down the road." (Obviously, not a game for me to play, so I'm jesting a bit with it.)
- Fourth excuse... "Inverted yield curve predicts a recession ahead." (Well, that can stir an argument because folks will start to ask just which Treasuries you're using to come up with that.)
- Wilson Pickett passed away. He wrote some good songs.
- Fifth excuse... "Lamar Odom's poor clock management." (OOPS, that's the Lakers' excuse for losing to the Kings last night!)
- Sixth excuse... "We get big corrections (most) every election-year cycle." (Double true!)
- OK, I think we've seen a tremendous amount of volatility this options week. Not only that, but we've combined that with the first week of earnings that contained some surprises on both sides. Heck, I'm wondering if the selling in Intel has gone too far. I did add some tech back to my portfolio today, hoping for a bounce next week. Not a recommendation, of course.
- Fear and greed rule the markets, so I'm going to peruse the blogs this weekend and read the bull and bear cases. I think greed was running high last week when folks thought they had to just buy anything and get long. Which of course tends to happen near the end of a run.
- I really gotta quit eating these pita chips.
- Barry Ritholz on The Bull's Sheet. Good read, since he's been trying to make the Bears' case for awhile. Good line from BR: "It’s still too early to cue the fat lady, but I can see her backstage, sipping on a nice cup of tea with lemon and honey. "
- One thing for sure, you can find whatever opinion out there that you're looking for. Nobody will be right 100% of the time. I certainly am not.
