Monday Morning Rally.

To no surprise, there was tremendous reception to the citigroup "bailout" today (so far). The dow popped 300+ pts this morning as the news overshadowed weary existing home sales numbers (not pretty). Will we be able to hold onto the gains? well Pres. elect OBAMA will be speaking live at around 9am pst to reveal his economic staff which could help sustain the upside or may trigger a sell off (let's hope he doesn't spend 15 minutes talking about the future first dog).

I can't put my complete confidence behind a good or bad holiday retail season just yet. Generally we are expecting a slow down in holiday spending for obvious reasons, but there is a very real possibility that the recent slowdown in consumer spending is due to people saving up only to flush the money into holiday sales (starting black friday). This could in fact end up surprising all the doom and gloom forecasts (short term only). Retail will still slide further 1st qtr 2009.

I however am still confident that credit usage will continue to decline, and with cash expected to be heavily used during holiday seasons this could directly effect banks in a negative manner. I think delinquency in consumer debt will continue to grow deeper (it's hard to say no to the kids!). I am still negative in real estate going into 2009, especially commercial real estate (which has only felt nicks and dings).

I sold my ATVI dec. 12.50s for a 25% gain, and have moved the $ into Bank of America dec. 10 puts. I'm a BULL at heart but the BEARs are leaving bigger prints still. I am also keeping an eye on some other plays for today (still long on TSL, may prove to be the most valuable small cap solar out of the bunch) - jotti the hot revolver