As my kids are on Spring Break this week, I plan to spend some quality time with them and as such, the posts will be on the light side.  I just turned on the computer for the day and I’m not in the least bit surprised to see such a sharp intraday reversals (both of them) so far.  About the only surprise was the fact that the US markets actually managed to gap up on the Cyprus deal steal, completely ignoring the potential ripple effects such outright theft of customer’s bank deposits may have throughout all the other European & possibly non-European countries with precarious fiscal conditions. I’ll check back in after the close today and will share anything that I come across that looks compelling.

The risk/reward favors being short or in cash at this time IMO.  I was “this” close to suggesting to book full profits the two long-side shipping stock trades (NM & EXM) on the early morning pop on Friday but regrettably did not.  NM is still very profitable but has pulled back back to the first target (T1) area which is now support so for those still long, consider a stop not too far below that level.  The EXM long has given back some very substantial gains from it’s intraday highs on Friday but is still up 5.6% from entry (0.88 vs. current price of 0.93), so if long this one, make sure to have the appropriate stop in place according to your trading plan.  I would continue to suggest being very selective on any new long positions and booking profits or at least make sure to protect gains by raising stops.  I have several emails in my inbox from followers of the site which I will reply to later today.  FWIW, I think this current intraday bounce which has taken the markets back to almost flat on the day looks to be about as good an opportunity to reduce some long exposure or add short exposure (or hedges) as we might get for a while.