Walk this way

3:30 am (Hawaii). Hand it to Steven Tyler. He may not be abrasive or sarcastic, but he will never tell a contestant that he "sucks" or had "dogs and wolves howling" no matter how bad he may have sounded on an audition for American Idol. Take away the long hair and gaudy clothes, and Steven Tyler is a businessman. He knows he's not Simon Crowell, so he sticks to what he knows best. His status as a great musician, songwriter and performer gives him credibility in spades.

The market is walking a certain way again. Since the ADP numbers, whatever they are (employment figures, generally) were released 15 minutes ago, the futures have tanked while crude oil has spiked. Silver has returned to highs after dipping overnight. EXK has already gained more than 2% on tiny volume. Technicians are probably going to fawn all over EXK's chart. It's a technician's pinup beauty.

Those futures, though, ugly. Ugly unless you're long oil and precious metals. I remain long with a half position in SLW.

AAPL is tempting this morning, with all the hype over the iPad 2 today. So are physical silver plays (EXK, PAAS, PHYS). It's good to be 60% in cash and good to have that dry powder through the open.

4:54 am (Hawaii). Misplayed my SLW trade and got out at the bottom, unfortunately. My mental stop loss was at 43.43; When I got back home before the opening bell, SLW had been trading above 43.90 (would've been a small profit) in premarket. But SLW sold off from the opening bell then rallied back to 43.70-plus ... then collapsed, taking out all the weak hands like mine. I had time to sell above 43.30, but sure enough, they took shares down to 43.04 and I was content to close my half position (at 43.10) and take a small loss. (4/10ths of 1% of my bankroll.) This is a great stock but is clearly top-heavy. Everybody who wanted in was at the front of the ship and it is tipping over. (Now trading below 43.) I should've had at least a mental trailing stop while SLW as near 44, but human nature is what it is. I didn't anticipate a selloff this morning, not while silver futures are still strong.

There will be other opportunities to re-enter SLW. Just not this morning, not this hour. The stop-loss sells are roaring over like a waterfall even as silver remains healthy (34.82). Other silver plays like EXK and PHYS are in the green, but either of two things may be happening with SLW: 1) the upcoming earnings report has been leaked, it's not great, and the balloon popped, and/or 2) traders are rotating out of silver to other sectors.