Catching up, Thursday

Business Insider: Murabak Supporters Storming Cairo, two NYT reporters arrested
Daily Mail: One journalist killed, dozens more attacked
Wall Street Journal: Egyptian VP: Protestors must go home
Emerging Markets: Muslim Brotherhood disavows radical rhetoric
CNBC Fast Money: China's Commodities
CNBC FM: Khouw bullish on LVS (earnings after the bell)

Rip Van Aloha

I wake up at 8:30 on this sunny Thursday morning to find myself off center. Feet not quite on the ground. Still transporting from a world where I did an all-nighter, worked on work-related stuff for nearly 48 consecutive hours (my choice of course) and then finally crashed out for the past nine hours. The only thing I heard about Egypt was via The Fly, who noted that shit was hitting the fan in Egypt last night.

Just catching up a little here. Looks like VXX ran up some to 31.25 early in the day, but pulled back and is hovering at 30.35 or so. I'm slightly negatoid with a tiny position there. Not sure I would've sold at 31+ though. That's how small the position is. Market is generally flat. Hardly a thing moving until the past few minutes as Bernanke talks about how QE2 is not the reason for rising inflation overseas. After ignoring the market for half a year, this is the first time I've seen him talk in awhile. He seems a bit defensive and much less confident, imho. Not the same guy I remember from a year or two ago.

AAPL's range today, 338.55 to 343.92 is interesting. Now at 343.43. Still a lot of buyers even in this skittish environment. NFLX back in the green (211.64). So is F (15.61). But FAZ (+1.5%), GLD (+1.2%), QID (+0.3%) and TBT (+0.8%) are all up.

It was a good morning to catch up on sleep.

Update, 10:09 am (Hawaii time). Stopped out of my little VXX position. Why bother with such a tiny position (loss was 1/10th of 1%)? In a peculiar way, it keeps me interested, more than I probably would be with no skin in at all. It wasn't bad. If it was a sizable position, I would've stayed up and sold above 31. Here below 30, no point.

Bernanke has spoken. Markets will be robust for a few more months and as we get closer to July 1, it all shrivels up and turns to dust. Something like that.

Cairo chaos?

Not quite chaos, but real close. Protestors battling protestors? Sounds fishy. What are the odds that the instigators (on horses) aren't just ordinary citizens. My guess is it's 95% the troublemakers are the police, who have been bad news all along. With Mubarak refusing to resign immediately, nothing is going back to "normal" for awhile, even with the Internet back on in Egypt.

Opened a tiny position in VXX again, which is well above its earlier low in premarket.

What do I know?

When Mubarak announced his decision yesterday to fire his entire staff, I figured that would placate Egypt's protestors until Monday. Instead, the death count has risen from 10 to 102 in little more than 24 hours. Fact is, the military has been very gentle with the general public; the latter wants the police deposed, not the army, and not just Mubarak.

After spending the day working and away from computers, this is stunning news. I underestimated the rage in Cairo. Maybe it's a setup, the police's disappearing act.

Update, Sunday, 4:08 am. Incredible, the rolling list of news coming through Google search right now. New story shows up every 2-3 seconds. Murabak's army jets are screaming lower and lower to the square where protestors have gathered in the thousands. Reports of army trucks nearing the square, too.

BBC reporter: 'This is how they treat journalists'

What the world respects is one's willingness to fight back. Things get worse, as a result, before they get better. But people can only take so much crap. When the price of bread rises to ridiculous proportions, shit happens. Obama warned the government, but they wouldn't listen.