Well, you didn’t expect the market to go STRAIGHT up, right? Let’s take a look:

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here are the tints:

• Yellow: the “final flush” when the markets re-opened on Christmas Day, fearing a continuation of the collapse;
• Green: the record surge yesterday;
• Cyan: selling based on incredulity, because people are going to remain skittish for a while based on the beating they took in December.

So I suspect this back and forth is going to be a fact of life for a bit, but it sure is nice to have a volatile market back. As I type this, the ES is down 37 points. Earlier this year, that would have been absolutely extraordinary, oh-my-God level news. Today it’s more like “well, that’s not so bad.”

I remain a virtual non-participant in this market due to my almost total absence of positions, but I’ll remain engaged as I anticipate the new year.