It was a beautiful morning.

I awoke to the sun shining and birds chirping.

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What did I do?

• We’ve been speaking about the potential for some commodity strength with an eye towards crude support at $110.
  
  
• We spoke about the set-up yesterday in the ‘Ville and built partial positions in Weatherford (WFT), Transocean (RIG), USO and Gold.
  
  
• This is a pure trade, Minyans, and I’m feeding some ducks into today’s strength (crude +2.5%, gold +$18).
  
  
• Could it last? Sure—geopolitical uncertainties persist.
  
  
• Why is Dano booking ‘em? First, I think the dollar has made a meaningful turn (I’m always early!) and second, I’m in “hit it to quit it” mode, particularly as I’ll be out for knee surgery the next few days.
  
  
• Trading Places or Wall Street?
  
  
• S&P levels of lore? S&P 1275 (the uptrend line since the July low) and S&P 1262, which was the last (fourth) higher low.
  
  
• Michael Price is no dummy. And when Michael Price is shorting Citigroup (C) and Wachovia Bank (WB) at these levels, it’s worth paying attention to.
  
  
• Green beans in the Red Sea? Pepsi (PEP), Dow Chemical (DOW), Merck (MRK), Apple (AAPL), the semicaps, (Applied Materials (AMAT), Novellus (NVLS), KLA-Tencor (KLAC)), Microsoft (MSFT) and eBay (EBAY).
  
  
• Ratdog and the Allman Brothers.  Jones Beach. Tonight. Noice. 
  
  
• A respected technical service offered last night that selling pressure matched its recent high reading and over their 75-year history, that has never happened one month after a major market bottom.
  
  
• In other words, in a normal, Hankless world, the July lows won't hold. Of course, our world isn't normal and it's definitely not Hankless.
  
  
• Personally, I'm excited for my knee surgery tomorrow—I'm excited to again run in Central Park, I'm excited to again kick-box, I'm excited again to be able to walk around without a sharp, shooting pain running up my leg. 39 is too young for this silliness!
  
  
• N's over S's with an eye towards NDX 1950 as the nearest-term resistance.
  
  
• Be careful trading options in the financials. While the VXO is low, individual option vols are fatter than I am—and that's fat!
  
  
• Keep on rolling, just a mile to go. Keep on rolling, my old buddy you're moving much too slow!
  
  
• Don't trade just to trade, Minyans, for as we used to say, boredom is never an actionable catalyst.

• Do you remember when we offered five reasons for optimism?
  
  
• One of which was real estate bargains?
  
  
• Would a foreclosed home for $1 qualify as such?
  
  
• Why do I think of Run-DMC every time wars going on across the seas?
  
  
• Y'all watching S&P 1275?
  
  
• Is Gold $850 a realistic counter-counter-trend bounce target?
  
  
• Even so, wouldn't it be forthright to communicate that I'm feeding the commodity ducks into this liftage? (Yes.)
  
  
• Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

I’m off like a prom dress tomorrow and Friday to fix myself—fare ye well and remember that risk management trumps reward chasing no matter which way you choose to play.

May peace be with you!

R.P.