Today's Real Numbers

Back on January 17th, I mentioned that I'd go long the Baltic Dry Index as a hedge if it could actually be traded. The index doesn't trade, thank God. I'd have lost 33%.

I mentioned back then that it felt like a false low, that I would have liked to see it a lot higher at this juncture. Well, obviously I was way wrong, and I hope I would have done a spec trade with calls. But it just shows you how bad the world economy really is. The index is back below its 2009 lows, never having even remotely challenged its 2008 high of 11793. After the most massive, globally coordinated stimulus that the planet has ever seen, it only managed a meager 4643 back in November 2009. It's been downhill ever since.

Since this index doesn't trade, there's no way to push it around with leverage. It is as close to raw data as you can get. All it measures, all it is, is an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials by sea worldwide. That's it. View a 5-year chart of it here.

So while Wall Street is going nuts today over numbers, think of the numbers behind the Baltic Dry Index and what they're saying. They seem to be cautioning us that this is a hollow recovery around the world.

As I wrote this, the employment numbers came out better than expected and sent the market on a moonshot. I took off all my longs at 1336 on the futures. I had been in SSO since Monday's big down day. I'm not mentioning ETF symbols anymore on my Twitter stream because there are so many bots out there now that send me "helpful" messages like this one:

"@marzbonfire $UPRO MFI is bearish and falling dojispace.com/stock-picks/pr…"

So basically it's saying I should have either shorted it or taken a pass back there at 1312 or whatever. Thanks son. I'll stick to my own plan and take a pass at these levels.

Now I'm looking for places to get short. I will wait to see how the S&P acts in the regular session. With volatility at relatively low levels, I will be looking at put options to begin speculating to the downside knowing full well that the May highs (1370.58) are the target now.