Longings of a madman

9:24 pm (Hawaii). One convenient aspect of watching futures charts is that I don't have to follow global news to figure out what might be going on. Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are tanking overnight. Crude oil was back above 105 (now 104.85). Gold is back over 1430 and silver is staying above 36. For now.

Copper continues to be ravaged and pillaged. Who knows what happens by the opening bell, but apparently, someone in Libya is not in a good mood.

Day of Rage just two days, no, 1 1/2 days away.

I don't trade futures, have no plans to do so. I don't care much about the details of copper and cotton, etc., except for the one thing the commodities tell me in general: when demand for industrial metals plummets, we're all in for a long, mediocre ride. The market goes flat (especially without QE3) and there are few winners on either side of a trade. 

I'd love to see silver explode as much as the next guy, but it still reeks of overconfident, arrogant bullish mania as Dendreon did a few years back. We don't know exactly who's playing who, and we don't know exactly who's a shill or not in some cases. We don't know if JP Morgan is truly teetering on the brink of collapse due to (fill in your theory here), or if they're simply honoring a longtime tradition of planting shills among the rest of us, encouraging the average Joe to dive headfirst and 100% into a "sure thing" like silver. Then came the rush of DNDN naked shorts that hammered the masses in "flash crashes" that were precursors to the actual market-wide Flash Crash of two years ago. 

That's part of the reason why I enjoy the view from the rafters. I'll get in and out occasionally, but long-term holding is out of the question. Marrying any stock (or short) right now warrants a thorough mental examination. 

Update, 9:52 pm (Hawaii). Adding EDZ and TZA to the watch list in the morning. Still like UCO as a hedge if I dare go long AAPL, but that's not a comfortable situation, not even close. The only way I'd go long AAPL is if the situation in Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia were cooled off, starting with the removal of said madman. Appears that won't be happening anytime soon, at least not with help from US naval forces. Unless this info is all a trick. Then that would be a very cool trick.