Well that didn’t work out. At that point we’d shed about 45 points off the high of the S&P 500, and now we’re 30 points more off that. That’s just shy of 5% off last Thursday’s highest price.

Needless to say: my profits from the last two week are all gone, and then some. But I’m still in all my positions. The reasonably good thing about this week, and even today, is that it was all rather orderly all the way down. Most big corrections start with a breathtaking selloff, and then bottom out with an even more breathtaking selloff, to the point where there’s just too many bargains and buyers start jumping in.

Sentiment was getting pretty bullish, so this week probably put a needed cure to that. The question arises: if I was going to be long this market, then why not wait until now, and buy in on weakness, at a bargain? That’s exactly what you want to do if you’re investing for the long haul. Rather than put your money in funds on a set day of the month, have your deposit go to a money market, and whenever there’s a decent sell off, buy then.

But I play the short term, so I can’t wait. There’s no guarantee that a market is going to be kind enough to revisit a price level before taking off again, so you just get in and get prepared to feel the heat if there is a re-test.

Well, I’m off to the mountains for the weekend. But I do think we see new highs in major indexes within a few weeks.