#1 FREE Swing Trading Strategy and Stock Picks for Day Traders

You've probably heard the old saw about war: long stretches of unbearable boredom interrupted by brief spurts of sheer terror. That's what the market seems like these days. In spite of whatever you may read about a tame VIX, the market is knee-deep in whipsaw dust.

The tinted areas you see above are, in this young month, the instances where the S&P went flying either higher or lower in a very short amount of time. I still am slack-jawed with shock that a massive government bailout, which two months ago would have yielded a +400 day for the Dow, whithered away into nothing. FRE was down. FNM was down. So was the Dow. And the S&P. And the Russell.

Incredible.

Tomorrow is going to be gargantuan. Both PPI and Retail Sales get reported at 8:30 EST. And then Ben Bernanke is hauled in front of Congress at 10:00 EST to have a little chat about monetary policy. Do you think they'll be able to find anything to talk about?

And after the close, earnings season heats up with INTC and CSX. And in the coming weeks, day by day, the quantity of companies reporting earnings will push higher.

I'm a frustrated bear, because in spite of the continued weak market, my portfolio is at a standstill. It's going to tack a whack at energy to really push my portfolio value higher. But that's where I see the best trades right now. This is going to be a deliberately short post today (but, hey, you got two earlier), so with that, I will bid you farewell.