Bookkeeping: Short OpenTable (OPEN)

Short in $61.90s; cover just under $57.50 - Larry Summers willing.  Shorting 2.4% exposure.

High beta stocks continue to take a beating; I continue to believe this is a canary in a coal mine (have I used that term enough the past 48 hours?)

The bulls POMO Master Brian Sack still have the ball over S&P 1150 but I see less chairs around and more fattened bulls, high on QE fumes, trying to find one by the hour.  We are back to the STOOPID market that has been dominant for much of the past few years - now the algorithm is "inverse dollar".  Dollar rallied a bit today, therefore everything must be sold.  The opposite of almost every day of September.  There is not 1 dollar bull left in the world - creating a good environment soon for it to rally for more than 3 hours.

Pulling out my Doug Kass hat, we are destined for fireworks sooner rather than later.  Complacency is overbought.  Further, if current pace continues in oil prices, many Americans will be frozen stiff as they enjoy their 'staycations' (since $3.50 gasoline is going to be an issue) in about 3 months, especially in the northeast where heating oil rather than nat gas is still prevalent.  On the plus side, I suppose that would reduce weekly unemployment claims; always a silver lining.

Remember, $3.50 gas and $125 oil will be 'success' in the world of Ben Bernanke.  To the frozen former middle class?  Not so much.

p.s. speaking of restaurants, as the economic recovery expands and blossoms, food stamp usage just hit a new record.  However, I only post about it when it reaches new "super cool" levels ... the next will be 1 in 7 Americans on food stamps.  [Nov 29, 2009: 1 in 4 Children, and 1 in 8 Americans Now on Food Stamps]  Not quite there but in the past 11 months we are getting very close  [fingers crossed!]  I expect sometime in early 2011 we will have reached the next level and we can then begin the journey to 1 in 6.  Of course due to the "wealth effect" the Fed is engineering, all these people need to do is put their food stamp debit cards into their Etrade account and buy some Netflix stock and they too can join the new path to American prosperity. 40 acres, a mule, and Netflix stock - everyone wins.

Short OpenTable in fund; no personal position