Tuesday Toil and Trouble (Dubble, Bubble)

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble." – Witches in Macbeth

"Cool it with a baboon's blood – then the charm is firm and good" is the conclusion of that line.  Certainly our Government witches have gotten us our double off the S&P's Satanic drop to 666 back in March of 2009 to a high of 1,322 yesterday – just 10 points away from a 100% run.

Back in March of '09, I was considered a perma-bull as I was running very contrary to the prevailing opinion on Wall Street.  Jim Cramer was warning that the Dow could fall to 5,320 – 20% lower than it was at the time and, on Fast Money on March 6th of 2009 (the day before the bottom):

• Guy Adami said: "But I still don't think we're there, yet. It has to feel like the end of the world before the market can bottom."
• "The data that I'd watch to signal a bottom is the rate of decline slowing", adds Karen Finerman. "But I don't see that, yet."
• "We won't be at the bottom until the financials participate in the market's broader moves," adds Pete Najarian.
• "I don't think we'll get a bottom until we get policy going forward that doesn't seem like it's just attacking Wall Street," adds Jon Najarian.

I'm not bringing this up to pick on those guys but just to remind you that "everybody" can be very, very wrong – both at the top and the bottom of the market.  My 13 buy picks on LiveStock that day seem like no-brainers now:  Shorting SKF (2 ways), long FAS (2 ways) and longs on RUT, GE, BAC, DIS, XLF, AMZN, TGT, HOV and RKH.

This last week, perhaps ahead of the curve, we shorted oil with USO and XLE, the Russell with TZA and emerging markets with EDZ.  We did this in preparation for some buying though because, if we break over our levels (and we did) and hold them (and we are) – then it's time to get a little more aggressively bullish.  It's a simple enough matter – If you have a portfolio that was 25% invested and 15% bearish and 10% bullish then we deploy 10% of the cash into bullish plays and we are then 35% invested and 20% bullish and 15% bearish.  There's…