Reader S. V. raises an interesting question:

I am working on scenarios to trade the contra-ultra indexes like SDS to take advantage of either a combo spread (selling puts and buying call) or another method to take advantage of price movements while reducing risk. Any thoughts?

Article last week about how to handle the inevitable losses in a great career.

There is really only one word to describe Friday’s intraday action: bullish. Right off the bat, thanks to a report showing the University of Michigan consumer confidence number fell below 60 to a 28-year low, the Nasdaq fell 1.2% within the first two hours.

There is no other way to spin today’s action other than it was downright ugly. However, after going over my personal holdings and seeing how few stocks needed to be sold and how few actually fell on higher volume, it became clear to me that I am going to have to see more selling to confirm that this short uptrend is dead.

Part 3 in the SPY Symmetrical Triangle series. It looked like the market was going to close down fairly substantially on Friday, until the news of a possible bond insurer bailout resulted in a rip roaring rally into the close. As a result, SPY is STILL trading inside of the triangle range.