Greetings from the southbound CalTrain. I bought my freakin' ticket 4 hours in advance this time, so, God willing, I'm not going to be incarcerated or otherwise troubled.

I know it doesn't take a stroke of brilliance to posit that the market will either be (a) Up; or (b) Down, but I'm serious about this. To explain........

Just as I was expecting today to be up, I'm expecting tomorrow to be down. It would surprise (and somewhat damage!) me if we witnessed something along these lines in the coming days and weeks:

The reason this might happen is twofold: (1) we neatly bounced off the Fibonacci retracement level today, which is acting as support (2) let's face it, the bulls have a lot of momentum over the past ten weeks, and it doesn't take much for them to simply dive right in and keep buying. Up markets beget up markets.

What I think is more likely - and much healthier for the bulls and bears alike - is something more like this:

Take careful note that my "down" scenario still has the market going up - - and going up quite handsomely! I have maintained for a long time that I'm not expecting the bears to wrest control back from the bulls for any sustained period until this Autumn. But I do think a "quick scare" down to the low 800s would do a couple of great things for the market: (a) give a great exit for many of these very powerful bearish positions; (b) provide a terrific re-entry point for stocks which have proved their ability to climb but needed to ease back to more sane levels.

If we can ease back, I think some of the easiest/cleanest profits to be had will be those made from riding the long side from the low 800s to the low 1100s.

This is an astonishing bumpy train, so it's kind of a miracle I've gotten this far. In any case, that's my broad view of the market. I want to say again how much I appreciate the community here, and even though it's totally out of my hands, I'm sorry the comments system (Disqus) was so troublesome today.

I'm going to be in San Francisco for the entire afternoon for back-to-back meetings, and I'll try to do a post on the train back home this evening.

It's comforting that today was up in the market, since it was pretty much what I was expecting.

See you here later tonight...........

Supplement: Anti-Government Rant

Well, I am on the northbound train to San Francisco, and I just had a little experience I must share with Slopers.

I'll start by saying that, after watching this video last night of a Pastor (and family man, father of four) brutally Tasered by cops for no reason, I was going to do a wild-eyed, anti-government rant. But I figured you good people probably would become concerned about my mental health, so I decided to give it a pass.

Anyway, here's what happened. I had to catch an 1:11 p.m. CalTrain northbound. It was 1:08, so I ran like the dickens to the ticket machine, and I put in my credit card. I pushed all the buttons, and it finally said Error Reading Card. So I tried again. Same problem. I tried a different card. I tried both cards on a different machine. Same problem.

At this point, the train is pulling up, so I jump on board. Now, if I had any sense, I would have found a seat, sat down, and quickly jumped off at the next station to buy a ticket fast as lightning.

But, nope, Eagle Scout that I am, I just had to be Mr. Honest. I immediatley told the conductor the situation.

Now, with normal humans (that is, non-government employees), the response would have been any of the following:

1. Awww, don't worry about it;
2. You can try the next station real quick and get a ticket there;
3. The ticket is $8, so just pay me that, and we'll be fine.

But, nope, none of this. What I'm told instead is that I can either (a) get off the train immediately (because "there's another train behind us" - - one hour from now); or (b) be issued a citation for evading the fare, whose fine they won't tell me, but they suggest it's like $100 or more.

I need to head north, so I take the citation. As he's writing me up, I'm trying to explain myself (again) and getting him to be reasonable, since I am totally willing and able to pay a ticket as long as there stupid machines work. "Well, you should have paid cash."

"But the machines don't work! If they accept credit cards, they should take credit cards!"

"Well, no one else on the train said there was a problem." (As if this makes it untrue)

"But I'm willing to buy a ticket! I just ran out of time before the train came."

"Well, being late is no excuse. Go sit down" And he hands me the citation.

In case anyone wasn't clear on this point, I consider people employed by the government to be employed by the government because private enterprise would not accept them. They are the bottom feeders of the capitalist system. Their puny brains are incapable of exercising judgment. And their failure to offer working machines has made a victim out of me, in spite of all attempts to be reasonable.

Twits.

I am switching from long to short on the /ES.

Steel yourselves. Watch this.

If we can manage to falter around 900 on the /ES, that will be a very big positive for the bears. On the other hand, if we keep pushing up through May 7's highs, the bulls very clearly still have control.

Please note Disqus still seems to be having troubles, so if Slope kind of "stalls" on you, it's because Disqus is failing to load. It also explains why comments are relatively light today.

I offer this chart as an example of why stops are important. Here we have STV, which until today was a gorgeous long position. It had a lot going for it - - - a clean pattern, a healthy breakout, and strong volume.

But I set a stop at that horizontal line, and I am no longer in this position. The last thing you want to do is hang on to something when it has had a technical violation like this. The rationale for being an owner no longer exists.

Also, I'm not positive, but it seems like Disqus might be acting up again. If it is, you probably already realized that.

As I look at DBC, I like the steady increase in volume lately as well as its pattern. This could be a dynamite security over the coming months. My own stop on this is quite tight, however, at 21.36. If the pattern can hold together, I think a ride up to 26, which is over 20% higher from here, is quite probable.