Intra-Day Update: Irrational Exuberance

UPDATE 10:09am EST: Here are the retracement levels for today. TNX is down but the mouth breathers don’t seem to care. Obviously the consumer numbers were cooked, but it’s all one big kabooki theater at this point. Frankly, I’m looking for an exit – should we get one I’ll cash out and walk away until next Monday.

UPDATE 10:31am EST: Curiously, AAPL is behaving today – actually making profits on that one – bless its soul. CF and GS are not so kind unfortunately. Anyway, don’t even try to make sense out of this tape – there’s a battle going on. If are holding puts and are not willing to cut here (like yours truly) get yourself a SPY/DIA hedge and let the idiots figure out a direction. Right now we’re at a pivot and buyers/sellers are fighting for the VWAP.

UPDATE 11:33am EST: Lots of movement but we’re not going anywhere. I thought expiration week was over.

UPDATE 3:00pm EST: I am quiet today because I’m mostly watching. Got into cash about 2 hours ago and took a loss on my puts as I saw the MMs play evil bid/ask games with all of them despite the market dropping steadily. I’m starting to follow the futures as trading the options market feels like a task of Sisyphus lately and making buck in this environment is harder than ever. As I’m writing this the ES just rallied 20 points which kind of vindicates my earlier decision to bow out.

Tape of today – this is what you call chopped hamburger meat.

I will probably take a step back for this week as I desperately need some time off, and there probably won’t be any market updates until Sunday night. Will follow up with quick thoughts and comment cleaners.