Torrid Tuesday

Dow Jones 10,510.95 -114.88 -1.08%

Nasdaq 2,317.26 -36.97 -1.57%

S&P 500 1,120 -16.14 -1.42%

Mixed bag today for the leaders, but a robust day for bears.

Germany's decision to end naked short trading stopped a slide in the euro, but by the close, the FXE dropped another buck to 121.77 and continues to trade lower after hours. Whatever the solutions are in Europe, there will be none overnight, apparently, and the dominoes continue to fall in slow motion. EUO closed up 2.75% to 25.24 and continues to trade higher in after hours.

• AAPL (252.36 -1.86 -0.73%) bottomed at 250.26 and ran back to 252-253 a few times before the close. It's held ground at 249-250 well the past two days, but I'm not re-entering until there's some sense of balance. Too many bears out there.

• BIDU (71.57 -1.61 -2.20%) and NFLX (102.01 -4.34 -4.08%) struggled, as did the financials. C (3.73 -0.13 -3.37%) and GS (137.36 -5.28 -3.70%), at least for this week, have been trading in tandem with Euro banks like IRE (6.88 -0.53 -7.15%) and NBG (2.50 (-0.15 -5.66%). The exception was STD, which was up 3-4% before closing at 10.40 (+0.04 0.39%).

• FAZ and VXX were solid plays today. FAZ gained 1.22 (8.86%) to 14.99. VXX gained 1.65 (6.00%) to 29.13. Both are trading higher after hours. I woke up at mid-day (early morning Hawaii time) and missed most of FAZ's run, but entered and caught a nice little profit before getting out. Then I re-entered right before the bell at 13.96 in anticipation of after-hours momentum. FAZ got up to 15.42 and is now at 15.38 AH.

The tide will turn eventually for financials, but it won't likely be very soon.

• Short-term plays like MGM and IRM were all right for traders who got shares before Monday's close. MGM moved on news that Paulson bought shares recently, hit a high of 14.12 before selling off and closing at 12.98 (-0.34 -2.55%). IRM moved on news that Buffett bought a stake recently and gained 0.31 (1.22%) to 25.67, off its high of 26.25.

Another short-termer, AKNS (1.02 +0.09 +9.68%) after announcing a partnership with Westinghouse. Hadn't heard that name in a long time. Westinghouse is actually owned by Toshiba now. AKNS ran to 1.23 right after the opening bell before selling off dramatically, right past Fibonacci levels (1.11, 108, 1.03). A lot of sourness in that stock. Not the kind of movement that we saw in HAUP a couple of sessions before.

• HAUP (3.07 +0.25 +8.87%) is hanging tough after being hammered by shorts on Monday. Shares got down to 2.72 before reversing field. Trading down at 2.92 in AH. With a float of 8 million shares, HAUP is a wild ride for longs and shorts. Watching Timothy Sykes and his short army go up against longs is quite the battle.

• Back to ETFs ... FXI kept dipping (38.43 -0.24 -0.63%) while FXP moved up again (45.01 +0.62 +1.40%).

• Inverse crude oil ETFs moved up, too. DTO (77.83 +1.14 +1.49%) and SCO 16.11 (+0.38 +2.42%) are skying high. I took a look at their charts last night and was blown away. But better to be cautious and wait for a pullback. Crude won't keep dropping forever every single day. Right?

• All the ETFs on my list that begin with 'S' were up: SDS, SKF and even SLV. GLD was also up, though just a bit. The last few sessions may have been consolidation more than anything for GLD. It refuses to jump ship.

• TMF is a sexy old prude, that's for sure. The 30-year treasuries (3x) gained a whopping 5.42% today to 38.29. Amazing. Nobody talks about it, too. With volume of just 178k shares, I can see why.

• US Steel (X) sold off huge again, losing 5.22% to 48.48. When China turns around, steel and copper will bounce big ... but Big Brother is powerful, and when he says slow down, the engine slows down in the Middle Kingdom.