I've mentioned my fondness for the work of Gary Savage on a number of occasions. Day by day, as I've read his work and looked at the charts, I have come to move over to the side of the gold bulls which Gary proudly inhabits.

I had a couple of reasons for being bearish on gold. One of them is that, looking at the $XAU and $HUI, it seems they are both against some formidable challenges given how far they've come and how much overhead supply there is. Here's the $XAU as an example:

The other reason is that I do put a certain amount of stock in the folks at Elliott Wave, and they've been tooting the "gold is heading to under $700" horn for many weeks now.

But one can't really argue with gold's persistent strength. And I put that in bold, because it seems to be standing out these days with respect to being able to climb in the face of the diminishment of other assets (oil, stocks, financials). Just look at these two:

GOLD in particular (as I tweeted a couple of days ago) has been remarkable, having reached lifetime highs the past couple of days. A challenge for me is to be able to buy anything at a new lifetime high, but I've been doing this long enough to understand that new highs often beget more new highs.

Finally, although I am a chartist to the death, I do respect Gary's macroeconomic rationale for believing in gold. It makes sense, to me, at this point in economic history.

If anyone needed living proof of the fallacy of buy & hold, General Motors -- makers of the Aztek - - provides it. Click on the "After" to see how this blue-chip stock has fared.

I have bought ANR today due to the nice retracement back to its breakout level.

I reiterate what I tweeted a couple of days ago - that General Electric (GE) is a marvelous short. I accumulated the largest stock position I've ever had in my life on this sucker, and I'm pleased with it thus far. My "eventual" target price is the low single digits (about $4), but I think $11.50 to $12 is in very easy reach within days.

I am almost afraid to utter (or write) that things are going well, for fear that the Forces of Evil (Geithner, Bernanke, etc.) will do something else to help the bulls. But we're off to a fantastic start. I've trimmed back my irresponsibly large FAZ position at a very nice profit, and I'm enjoying gains almost across the board, including from these two old favorites:

It's way too early to talk about any kind of "shift" happening, but if we can - - - please, Ursus Major! - - bag a pair of back to back down days, it's something we can consider.

This is one of my favorite movies ever. Just take the time to watch the first five minutes and I think you'll find yourself quite drawn in; it's charming.