Sheesh, what is with this market? Tuesday was awesome for me. Wednesday was absolutely horrible. And now today, Thursday, is going great. Could the market make up its mind? No, I’ll go one better. Have the market go down 2% daily, every day, until it is 0. That’ll suit me nicely. This up/down/up/down stuff is driving both the good guys (the bears) and the wicked evildoers (the bulls) out of their respective minds. It’s sick.

Anyway. I wanted to share a couple of unrelated short ideas (tied together by my clever post title). The first is the financial sector, XLF, which gapped down nicely where that circle is shown. This sector peaked back on January 29th, and its gap is at 27.72. I have so many bank stocks in my portfolio already, it would be redundant for me to short this one too, but it’s a cool chart.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The other ETF is XLE, which is the energy sector and has a failed bullish breakout (green tint). I have provided a highlighted view of the past couple of weeks trading activity to provide clarity on that failure. I have shorted this one with a stop at 77.08

(Click on image to enlarge)