First, I know that none of you could care less about all of you are terribly interested to hear about my little toe. Why wouldn't you be? Today's procedure did no good at all. The bones are still in the wrong place. So that means..........surgery! Yay! I've never had an incision in my life, and now this. My little toe is taking over my entire freakin' existence. I hate it.

And, yes, your life is affected too! Because some day soon, I am going to lose an entire day to surgery. That means I lose an entire day of trading, which is horrible (our "dancer" post earlier today notwithstanding). And it means you don't get any posts that day. And this isn't going to be one of those "I'll be on vacation so you won't get many posts", and I'm still at it every 90 minutes. I will be under sedation. I'll probably do something clever like schedule a bunch of comment cleaners that auto-deploy at certain times. So I'll be blogging while under sedation. Wow; that actually sounds pretty cool, now that I think of it.

The long-awaited fictitious nonsense from the government was spewed out after the close today, and, in true anti-climactic fashion, it doesn't seem like anyone cares. The /NQ (which I'm following much more closely these days) is up 0.75. Three-quarters of a single point. Whoop-de-freakin' do. So at least we don't have this sword hanging over our heads anymore. The jobs number in the morning will be the next mover.

Now, over the course of the last grueling, horrible 9 weeks of hell, there has been plenty of disappointment. Here are just a few examples of the "shoulda's" that got away..........

(a) We shoulda gone done since we broken a very clean trendline and a really good head and shoulders pattern was formed;
(b) We shoulda plunged from here since ending diagonal was fully retraced (thanks, EWT guys!);
(c) We shoulda fallen from here since we were at a major Fibonacci level and had, yet again, come alongside the underbelly of the broken trendline;
(d) We shoulda fallen here for roughly the same reasons as (c);

One eventually  throws his arms up and stops trying to figure out what's next. It's too frustrating and expensive.

The climb higher hasn't been clean, but it has been merciless. A nearly 40% rise in 9 weeks for a lumbering index like the S&P is bad enough, but there are hundreds and hundreds of stocks which have gone up hundreds and hundreds of percent in the same short span of time. I notice my detested superhero IRA portfolio has a bunch of double-digit gainers in the after-hours tonight again (such as KEY, which is actually a very interesting little chart).

Glancing over at my honkin' big Apple monitor, I see the /ES has bumped up to an 8 point gain. The real question will be what Friday holds. We haven't had two black candles on the S&P in an entire month! So today's 100-point tumble on the Dow might be just another in a series of one-hit wonders or, God forbid, a true inflection point for something more meaningful.

If you're bearish and are desperate for something to cling to, here's a chart of the $NDX you might like. It combines two very interesting things: (a) a very big down-candle which broke the trendline established for this entire rally; (b) on very impressive volume. Indeed, it was over double the volume on the QQQQ compared to last Friday.

My toe and I shall now take our leave. Be careful. And don't run into any doors. Only a real moron would do something like that.

Loyal Slopers will remember my devastating injury on March 28th. Poems were written. Songs were sung. Beautiful women wailed and sobbed.

You would think I'd be all better by now, but I'm not. I would normally not discuss swollen, throbbing body parts in this forum, but my little toe is still unhappy. Thus I am returning to the podiatrist today. Thus I am also unhappy.

I am scheduled to have the bones in my little toe shoved back to where they should be. This is preceded, of course, by a series of shots to numb my foot. And while I'm a pretty tough hombre in the financial markets, when it comes to medical visits, I put on a pink dress, tie a pretty bow in my hair, and shiver quietly in a corner..

So I will be out this afternoon. Although several cathedrals are already filling up with those offering prayers, you may add to this chorus of voices as I seek liberation from my ailment. I do, after all, have to retain my ability to count to 20 for the rest of my days.

I think the smart money knows that the United States Government is eventually going to fail. Not "have trouble." Not "go through a rough patch." But, ultimately, default. They will not be able to print their way out of this mess. Particularly with - - what was the figure again? - - $53 trillion in "entitlements" debt. Although that figure is probably much higher by now. Anyway, this is a long that every bear can love.

No, it's not Bank of America. That stands for Big Ass Candle. Exhibited by our buddy OIH:

Gary Savage has been a long-time Sloper is is one of the original folks on my favorite trading sites page. He posted a charming story last night that I think has a lesson for us all; I am posting it here with his blessing.

Nicolas Darvas was a professional dancer who turned $8,000 into $2,000,000. How he did it makes a fascinating story for anyone interested in investing. I won't go into details, I'll just let you read the book, but basically Nicolas found a system he was comfortable with (his box theory) and then had the discipline to follow his system. Actually his system is the least interesting thing about the book. What I found so intriguing was the fact that Nicolas spent most of his time overseas working as a dancer. He couldn't even get daily stock quotes. He would have his broker send him the Wall Street Journal once a week. That's right, he only looked at the market once a week.

Now here's what was really interesting. As long as Nicolas was working overseas and away from Wall Street with only limited information he consistently made money. Actually he made money hand over fist. However at one point in his career he decided to go to New York so he could be in the middle of the action. Any guesses as to what happened once he made this change? That's right he immediately started to lose money. Watching the day to day tape caused his emotions to wreck havoc with his discipline and started costing him money right off the bat.

It wasn't until he went back to Europe and back to his dancing career that he started making money again. I believe it was Bernard Baruch who said that the most money he ever made was when he went on vacation and couldn't watch the market. Folks, the day to day moves in the market are often meaningless noise. It's much easier to see what's really going on by taking a step back and looking at the big picture. I suspect that 99% of us are going to make a lot more money by watching the market a hell of a lot less.

I confess that if I didn't write this report every day I probably wouldn't look at the market for weeks at a time. In my opinion it's a total waste of my time and energy watching the sheep push and pull the market back and forth every day.

Given the fact that the day is actually interesting/profitable, I don't have time to do new posts right now. Here's something wistful to watch.

• "I could care less."
• "It's all good."
  
• "Even a stopped clocked is right twice a day."
• "Green shoots."
• "V-shaped recovery."
• "Pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off."
• "The worst is behind us."
• "At the end of the day........"
• "Booyah!"
• "I just threw up a little in my mouth."
  
• "It is what it is." (note: this actual requires torture before the execution)

The mood out there is really getting to be something.

People with whom I speak - - -  even really serious, doom 'n' gloomer types - - - are starting to have real doubts that the market will ever weaken in a meaningful way again. The tone in the comments section has become giddy (for the bulls; welcome back, Beanie!) and scary for the bears (I don't think I've ever seen the word "suicidal" used until last night). And TBTSNM's comment section has been pushed into an entirely different dimension, with physical threats and racism being hurled around. It's really ugly.

In early March, the cries from the bulls were the same: when is this going to end?!?!? Well, the shoe's really on the other foot, now. I think hardly anyone, even the most enthusiastic of bulls, expected the rally to come this far, this fast, with no pause. Even as I type this, before the opening bell, the /ES shook off the deficit that I saw when I went to bed to be sporting a handsome rise, and many of my stupid IRA stocks are showing pre-market gains in the low double-digits. More and more, that IRA junk has become my canary in the coal mine.

The folks over at Elliott Wave International do a good job tracking sentiment, and this graph (used with permission) caught my eye:

Notice how the percentage of bulls went from 2%, a never-seen-before-low, to 80%, in just a couple of months.

They believe - - and I agree - - that until sentiment gets into the nosebleed area of the 90s, this rally still has room to run. In the meantime, the bulls are going to keep running the show.