V-Shaped Dancing at the Edge of the Cliff

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It seems as though this setup has been happening for much of 2011–We would base/consolidate and come close to breaking higher, then break down in a fast and furious manner, then see a V-shaped recovery, only to see it either quickly fall apart again, or base out for another frustrating breakdown. Either way, the market is continuing its V-shaped move off of last Friday’s lows this morning, as we are quickly moving from the low end of a massive multi-quarter trading range up to the top. Underneath the surface, financials, retail, and consumer discretionary are all leading the charge higher.  The transportation stocks continue to act impressively, suddenly threatening a breakout to multi-quarter highs. Even though some more basing action on top of yesterday would be preferable to putting on more long exposure, the market seems hell-bent on not letting that happen in order to catch the majority of traders out of position.

I covered the last portion of my AAPL short for a small loss this morning, respecting the fact that even though I would like to re-short it soon, the market and stock are basically moving higher regardless. In addition, I locked in some nice gains in my FIRE long inside 12631, retaining a small partial position which I will hopefully add back to soon. I have a few other longs on, but nothing too heavy yet. Their overall chart patterns are just too loose and sloppy for me to get very aggressive here, despite the exuberance associated with these dramatic V-shaped moves that come from sharp declines and then rebounds.