Good morning, and welcome once again to the 9th floor.

I’m a little groggy this morning. I didn’t leave my place of work until eight last night. I’ve had quite a workload to get through, and have easily been putting in ten to eleven hour days to make it all happen.

Despite my preoccupation, I’ve been keeping the market warily in the corner of one eye. I remain highly skeptical of this rally, and of the Eurozone currency.

I was forced to cover half of my UCO short a week ago, but promptly added half of the half back on…which of course lost me even more money. It’s getting to be sort of a game, not unlike slots, where I flush cash into a shiny box sitting in front of me.

But in case you’ve been missing the signs, global growth is totally off the table. The U.S., Australia, and Canada have all revised growth down. And Europe is definitely experiencing a contraction.

With these realities, crude oil trading above $90 just doesn’t make any sense at all. Also, remember that the last time crude oil was this expensive gasoline was trading around $3 a gallon. Right now it’s at $2.65. That’s a huge disparity, and especially in light of the crude glut we got last month, it shouldn’t exist.

Also, the ECB cutting interest rates should negatively affect the euro, not shore it up. They are effectively admitting that without weakening the currency, they have little hope of getting their economies back up and running.

First, remember that Europe, even if they somehow manage to raise all the currency they need to bail out the bad debtor nations for the next two years, has barely allocated enough funds to get the job done. The bond market will have to go along with it all eventually, or else there is no room for error.

Second, remember that all of these countries with mark exception are basically still running budget deficits and need their economies to grow if they are to have even the faintest hope of making it out of this.

So in the next few months, Europe has a massive collection underway which is very likely to fail, to backstop problems that are getting bigger, and a strong currency to boot.

I will be nudging into EUO, because based on these tasks the ECB, under their new management, will almost certainly move to devalue the euro.

I leave you with this thought; don’t be placated by the seeming willingness of the Italians to let the EU monitor their actions (they made an announcement this morning, likely to try and calm their bond market).

The blood of my own mother, bless her, came from the eastern shores of Italy. They are the most stubborn people on the face of this planet.

Whatever their lying mouths say, their hearts will not appreciate foreign interventionists nosing into their books and business. I guarantee you, the Italians will be more indignant than the Greeks, when the time comes.

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The rumor mill is in full swing, grinding the net value of investors and traders alike into a fine piecemeal. And unfortunately, there are very few places you can hide from it.

I’m very sick of this nonsense. It’s not like we needed to be told not to trust anything coming out of Greece. There’s no way you believed the news flow if you’ve been paying attention for the last month.

And just out of curiosity, why are we celebrating the ECB cutting rates? You know what that means, don’t you??

It means we’re getting a stronger U.S. dollar. It also means the ECB is terrified about dipping into a second recession.

Yeah, let’s hold a stock buying party in honor of Europe being totally incompetent. Let’s pay $93 for a barrel of crude oil while we’re at it, even though industry is systematically shutting down worldwide.

Don’t try to make sense of it. It doesn’t make sense.

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The man sitting across from Joe Doe looked back at him unwavering. Pulling the gun swiftly out of his pocket, he put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger – which was met with a resounding CLICK.

In a cross manner, the gun was removed from the man’s mouth and laid out in front of Joe. His turn.

“What the hell?! This dick has some fuckin’ nerve,” Joe thought to himself. But he’d show him. No one got away with that kind of fanfare.

Glaring back at the two dark blue eyes sitting across from him, Joe’s mouth split into a big grin, revealing a row of yellow stained teeth. “Watch this then…,” he thought back at the two unblinking eyes.

Joe lazily flopped the gun barrel into his mouth and applied pressure to the hard, cold metal under his index finger.

The man sitting across from the table watched as the hammer falling coincided with the most lurid sound a man can hear; the cracking of gunpowder and the flashes of light intermingling to create a gruesomely horrible scene.

For an instant, Joe sat looking like a pumpkin, light coming out of his mouth; and the next that imagery was gone, replaced by the lagging mix of matter (colored lightest at white and stepping randomly to darker shades) that seemed to hover out of the back of Joe’s head. Blood filled Joe’s mouth and seeped out in streams over his hand and the gun.

As Joe’s eyes, still wide with surprise, quickly lost their color, his body hunched over the table, the blood covered gun sliding out of his sanguine (though quite unlucky) mouth and rapping loudly on the surface of the wood.

The smell of sulfur softly lingering in the air, a single hand calmly slid across the table, grasped the gun, and pulled it back to the man with blue eyes. Gripping the handle and pulling the weapon up to the light, the letters R U G imprinted on the side of the steel being the only things visible between the rubicund paint now amply covering its surface, the hand twisted the gun so that its width aligned laterally to the man’s body, the barrel facing away from him.

A single, dexterous finger found its way to the side of the drum, as an opposing thumb applied pressure to the drum lock. And in a composite movement, the finger and thumb swung the drum off to the side of the revolver, the extra force causing it to spin on its axis ever so slightly.

A second hand joined the viewpoint and, clutching the spring loader, caused it to pull out, sending the contents exiting.

Two perceptible pitches of sound carried through the air; the first was the light clanging of an empty cartridge hitting the tabletop. The second sound was the louder clatter of four full cartridges falling the short distance.

The edge of Cain Hammond Thaler’s lip pulled upward into a small smirk, and he chuckled softly before he spoke.

“What a dumbass.”

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Alright you little bastards, the moment of truth is at hand. Three weeks ago you bid crude oil back above $90 a barrel.

I have no fucking clue why.

I’ve heard plenty of reasons behind the move; some of them have to do with European salvation, some are inarticulate murmurs of eternally declining supply and more expensive extraction methods, some have to do with lines on charts, and some are just stupid.

But the biggest reason of all is that the Federal Reserve is going to announce some grandiose plan to destroy the dollar.

Between then and now, we had a MASSIVE 4 million barrel build in reserves, reports of increasing production out of Iraq, the death of the Libyan leader Qaddafi, and horrific, godless numbers in manufacturing coming from various parts of the U.S., some of China, and most of Europe.

So I’ll see your bet and raise you one .44 caliber revolver in my mouth. I added to UCO yesterday.

*CLICK

Your turn.

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As a quick aside, don’t think that because the market is getting lit up system wide that all stocks are a bad buy. Even if you get in a little too early, there are plenty of operations right now that you should consider getting into, in small incremental steps to help get a good average pricing.

For instance: despite it being all the way back at the beginning of the year, I think my call on utilities is still valid. Plenty of these names are yielding 3-4%, and have very stable operations with extremely good cash levels. They are also non-negotiable services which will be the first to receive payment and the last to be stiffed.

AWK is still a good buy here, with a 3% dividend and diligent management of its assets. They’ve got $13 million in cash on the books plus over $100 million in client accounts receivables coming due. And they have been aiming to keep the dividend payout below net revenue per share. Pretty secure; I’m much more comfortable in my water utility company than MF Global is in its Italian 10 year bonds, you can bet on that.

There’re plenty of opportunities left in the utility sector, just waiting to be ferreted out by a determined individual. Take a look and let me know what you find.

Also, even though the uranium sector has yet to stage a rebound, and my unrealized losses are deep and painful looking, I’m absolutely optimistic about the space and specifically CCJ.

The numbers just don’t add up, and they still point to uranium fuel shortages. CCJ is the biggest and best situated to whether a prolonged winter in the uranium market, and when spring time comes again for the energy industry, CCJ will pop to $30 in a matter of days.

Plus, the uranium miners are heating up; CCJ has a friendly takeover offer in effect for a smaller miner. I’d guess some similar moves are coming soon to gobble up the smaller competition. If things get going you could see the hot money flood the market, global crisis not-withstanding.

It’s never too early to think about the next big things. I think we should trade lower and the dollar is definitely undervalued here, but over the years you’re nuts if you think I’m a dollar hoarder or eternal pessimist. I know I’ve sounded like that a lot lately, because there’s a lot in the immediate time frame to worry about.

But it’s also never too early to start edging into that next big trade. Don’t sacrifice tomorrow’s gains for today’s concerns. Just keep it small and manageable.

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If anyone says they nailed this move, they are a brazen liar and should probably be discredited immediately. There is no “nailing” this type of godless action.

I am especially annoyed, as last week I finally snapped and covered half of my outstanding UCO short, thinking “well we rally to December now.”

If I had waited, I would have been granted serious reprieve from the $37 mark I covered at; today it’s below $35.

And to boot, I am too exposed to the long side, if the EU barely managed to buy us a week of calm. So I felt the need to add back half of the UCO shares I covered today for $34.78.

I am giving active lessons in how to lose money, over here. Come on down and get a “free” loss lesson.

Uhhh….

However, thus far, my opinion of the EFSF bailout is being substantiated; it’s a garbage idea that’s going to get broken. I covered because I figured it would take at minimum weeks for people to figure that out.

Looks like they are coming to terms in just days. Sucks to be Europe, then.

Don’t forget that if the EFSF gets underway quickly enough, then the bond yields on Italian and Spanish debt are misleading. However, if the European band leaders can’t get their ducks in line, then we will begin to collapse very quickly.

The safest place you can be is the U.S. dollar.

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