The holiday stretch is upon us and not a moment too soon. Following the bi-polar stroller from the depths of despair to an all-clear repair, we tee up the back nine much the way we started this round, albeit with a few less hair follicles.

As mentioned yesterday, I’ll deep dive our ten themes on Monday when most folks are back in the saddle. For today, I’m gonna invoke my A.D.D. poetic license and hopscotch a few topics that are rattling around my crowded keppe. There are crosscurrents galore, so let’s hop to it and juggle the struggle:
 

• Minyan Peter’s take on Municipal Finance, The Third Derivative is required reading for all ye faithful.
  
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• Hoofy & Boo’s take on corporate family feuds is required smiles when we need them most.
  
  
• As there are rumblings of something "geopolitical" on tap, please join me in a prayer for peace over the 4th of July holiday stretch.
  
  
• Amazon (AMZN) lost 4% after I cued up a put purchase yesterday (three times) and never pulled the trigger. You know what I did about that about it? Nothing!
  
  
• If I’ve learned anything through the years, it’s that profitability resides in the ride ahead and opportunities are made up easier than losses, right?
  
  
• Takeaways from yesterday’s session? Let's see, in no particular order:
  
  
  • American International Group (AIG) was down 24%, just like the good ol' days.
    
    
  • The rest of the financials shrugged it off for most of the session but got the black lung into the close.
    
    
  • Purple is the new pink and S&P 930 is the new S&P 950 until proven otherwise.
    
    
  • If this is the "upside window" (into quarter-end and monthly flows), the odds have increased, on the margin, that S&P 956 is the 2009 Widow's Peak.
    
    
  • I may be very wrong (some corporate credit proxies continue to improve) so please understand this is one dude's opinion.
    
    
  • Dude!
    
    
  • Work to live, don't live to work.
    
    
  • Try to enjoy the journey. In 100 years, today's P&L likely won't matter!
    
    

America’s Worst Nightmare!

Our peeps on the Street tell us they've seen "meaningful real money buying" in the homies over the last week or so.

As the homebuilders were the first sector to fail—a domino that hit the financials, financials in drag (General Electric (GE), General Motors (GPM), Ford (F)), retail, tech, energy and so on and so on—they're worth monitoring for signs of life.

While I doubt we've hit bottom (consumer despair will likely arrive in waves), we can learn a lot just by watching. Through that lens, please note the long-term downtrend line (and attendant pennant) in the HGX.

If O-Dog and his crew roll north, Hoofy will likely ride shotgun.

Answers I Really Wanna Know...
 

• Saved by Zero, Part Deux?
  
  
• How do you reconcile "never short a dull tape" with "using price action to your advantage?"
  
  
• Carefully?
  
  
• Does anyone else sense a seismic currency readjustment brewing?
  
  
• If your longs were shorts and your shorts were longs, would your perception of the price action be any different?
  
  
• The Wall Street Journal-China will be running Memoirs on their front page as a daily column for the next 18 weeks? (yes)
  
  
• Who was it that said you don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your friend?
  
  
• Whose idea was it to reverse-split American International Group?
  
  
• Did you see the heavy action in Wells Fargo (WFC) and American Express (AXP), Amazon, Baidu (BIDU), Research in Motion (RIMM), (Sears (SHLD), Target (TGT) and Home Depot (HD) relative to the market?
  
  
• How would Sisyphus trade this tape?
  
  
• Why can't I have hair inflation and weight deflation instead of the other way around?

Have an awesome holiday stretch, Minyans, and remember to Do Something Joel as a random act of kindness is a powerfully positive pebble in the pond of life.

R.P.