• That's the rumor.

Break in!

Rumor: Microsoft (MSFT) to unveil Office for the Apple (AAPL) iPad  

• Health.

Apple's (AAPL) shares continue to disappoint.

But here is a first look at health cards, Apple's next focus within the iPhone.

• Thanks for reading my diary today and enjoy your evening.

I am heading out early this afternoon.

Today's late start was because of my attendance at my pals Jane and Dana Dribben's daughter's wedding last night.

Colette was a beautiful bride, Josh a handsome groom, and the ceremony was emotional, romantic and heartfelt. The reception was a helluva lot of fun.

Congrats to the Dribben family and my warmest best wishes.

Thanks for reading my diary today and enjoy your evening.

And God bless Uncle Vinnie.

• At $15.09.

I added to my Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) long at $15.09, and I continue to short PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) with an $89.70 limit.

• I am now back to 5% net short.

Added to PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) short at $89.79.

I am now back to 5% net short. (I started the day 10% net long.)

• I am back to slightly net short.

• At $89.72.

I am back shorting PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) at $89.72.

• Run, don't walk, to read 'U.S. Banks' $75 Billion Payout at Stake in Stress Tests' on Bloomberg.

This Bloomberg article warrants our attention, as it relates directly to bank stock investing and the outcomes could serve as market catalysts.

The thrust of the column is that there will likey be a 65%-plus increase in the banking industry's capital redeployment in the year ahead (share buybacks and dividend increases).

My thought is that, at the margin, there could be some pleasant surprises.

Notably, Citigroup (C), expected to return about $5.5 billion, might be able to return as much as $8.0 billion. My base case is that Citigroup will buy more than 10% of its market cap back in a repurchase program.

The potential payout at JPMorgan Chase (JPM), under intense regulatory scrutiny, is not surprising.

In the aggregate, most banks are in excess capital positions relative to their Basel 3 minimums.

On Thursday the DFAST results of how banks fared under stress scenarios will be released, and next week the actual capital return plans will be accepted or rejected.

• $10 for Bon-Ton, $15 for TZA and $68.90 for TBT.

I am bidding $10 for more Bon-Ton Stores (BONT), $15 for more Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) and $68.90 for more ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT).

• Again.

ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT) is getting jiggy.

• Keep large cash reserves, remain diversified (across company and industry lines), and wait for the right pitch.

Regardless of one's bias (long or short), the market backdrop will likely remain volatile and uncertain.

My refrain, and even recommendation (which I rarely do), is to err on the side of conservatism.

Keep large cash reserves, remain diversified (across company and industry lines), and wait for the right pitch.

No "stock market trading jones" necessary!

• Here are his musings.

Midday market musings from Sir Arthur Cashin:

Interesting morning, indeed.  Safe havens (10 year yield, gold, yen) give up some ground but not much.

U.S. stocks roar out of the box and, when they punch through resistance at S&P 1850/1853, they explode to 1861 on a wild burst of algorithmic buying. That strongly suggests short covering, yet volume looks about average.

Stocks ease off highs in front of Obama statement, then churn on now new developments.

More later with midday run rate.

• Berkshire Hathaway, Quicken Loans and Yahoo! Sports are the winners of the $1 billion bracket challenge.

As we all know, Warren Buffett is the greatest living investor in history -- and Warren gets better with age.

Unlike most billionaire octogenarians, who spend months on their yachts in the Mediterranean or winter in their oceanside mansions in Palm Beach, Florida, and Summer on Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton, Warren (at 83 years of age) has not lost a step.

Warren Buffett, the man who General Electric (GE), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Bank of America (BAC) go to when they need $5 billion to $10 billion of extra capital during economic crises, recently appeared on CNBC to advertise that his Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A/BRK.B) is insuring the Quicken Loans $1 Billion Bracket Challenge With Yahoo! Sports.

The contestant who selects a perfect bracket will receive a top prize of $1 billion. Entries will be restricted to 15 million entries. The top 20 most accurate brackets will receive $100,000 each.

As was the case with Berkshire Hathaway's rescue of General Electric, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs several years ago (at the economic and stock market nadir), by insuring the contest, Warren is the big winner here as he bets with the odds stacked immensely in his favor (and so do Quicken Loans and Yahoo! Sports win).

Here is why:

1. No one will win the contest. If you don't believe me, read the fine print on the rules page, which explains the odds of winning are one in 9 quintillion. This is consistent with the math and science site Orgtheory.net, which states that there are more than 9 quintillion possible ways to fill out the 64-team bracket. That is much more of a long shot than the one in 259 million odds of winning the grand prize in Mega Millions or the one in 175 million odds of winning the top prize in Powerball. John Diver, the director of product development for ESPN Fantasy has stated that "in the 13 years that ESPN has had NCAA bracket contests, no one has ever come close to a perfect bracket, even though there have been 30 million entries.... In fact, only once in the last seven years has anyone gotten the first round perfect." If all the people who live in our country filled out the brackets (randomly) and ran the contest for nearly three centuries, there would be a 99.3% probability that no one wins the contest.
2. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has offered $1 billion before and has lived not to pay it. That was back 11 years ago when numbers were printed in the bottle caps of Pepsi products and a monkey drawing the final numbers to see if anyone would collect the $1 billion prize failed to find a winner.
3. And the winners are Berkshire Hathaway, Quicken Loans and Yahoo! (YHOO). Berkshire Hathaway takes in a large (but undisclosed) premium in the unlikely event that someone wins, and Quicken Loans gets a lot of free information from the applicants regarding their housing intentions and current mortgage rates. According to a recent Slatearticle, a mortgage lead such as the one Quicken Loans is receiving in the contest, can be valued at between $50 and $300 per lead. In order to submit a bracket an applicant must create a Yahoo! account, so Yahoo! wins, too.

During March Madness some of TheStreet's Wall Street Pros, including Jim "El Capitan" Cramer and Stephanie "The Missing" Link, will participate in the Beat TheStreet Bracket Challenge on ESPN.com.

Join us at www.thestreet.com/espn to participate in the contest, which will likely be as much fun and as rewarding as the Quicken Loans challenge! In our case, all participants are entered into ESPN.com's contest wherein the top 1% of all brackets on ESPN.com will be entered into a random drawing for a $10,000 Best Buy gift card, and the participant with the most points on the Beat TheStreet Bracket Challenge will receive a basketball signed by Jim Cramer and Stephanie Link.

Thanks and enjoy March Madness. And try to Beat TheStreet!

• Markets might not repeat themselves, but they certainly rhyme.

Jim "El Capitan" Cramer continues to write about specific areas of market speculation that concern him.

They concern me as well.

In fact, back in 1997 I wrote this editorial in Barron's' "Other Voices" section entitled "Kids Today," which should remind us all how markets might not repeat themselves but they certainly rhyme.

• Namely, industrial production et al.

Industrial production came in at +0.6%, ahead of estimates of +0.2%, while capacity utilization ticked up to 78.8% (vs. estimate of 78.6%) and manufacturing production rose by +0.8%, better than expectations of +0.3%. The gain in factory production was the largest since last August and left uear-over-year industrial production growth at 2.8%. Business equipment led all industries with 1.3% month-over-month growth in February while utilities dropped -0.2% after rising 3.8% in January. Auto products production jumped 4.6%, reversing most of the January decline.

Overall this was a pretty broad-based strong report with sectors hardest hit in January bouncing back strongest while the main laggard (utilities output) was a function of falling from a high base due to weather. While capacity utilization is still below long-term averages, the 2002-2007 cycle peaked right around the longer-term average, and each cycle since 1970 has peaked either lower or at the same level as the previous cycle. This argues that while we remain below long-term averages, there may be less slack than that stat would initially suggest and it may not be as much of a drag on capex as it would appear.

I continued to add to my short bonds position this morning.

And here is Goldman Sachs' take:

1. Industrial production rose 0.6% in February (vs. consensus +0.2%). The gain was entirely driven by the core manufacturing category, which rose +0.8% (vs. consensus +0.3%), largely reversing January's sharp weather-related drop. Motor vehicles and parts posted an out-sized 4.8% increase, bringing total vehicle production to 11.4mn units at an annual rate. Manufacturing output ex-autos rose a solid 0.5%. Outside of manufacturing, utilities output edged down 0.2% despite the colder-than-normal weather, while mining output edged up 0.3%. In line with the stronger-than-expected gain in industrial production, capacity utilization rose to 78.8% (vs. consensus 78.6%).
2. We left our Q1 GDP tracking estimate unchanged at 1.5%.

• I am back to market-neutral with some ETF buys/shorts.

• Baby steps at $14.92.

I am back buying Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) at 14.92.

Baby steps, though.

• I added to TBT and GM.

I added to my ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT) long this morning on the economic data.

I also added to General Motors (GM) at $34.25 in premarket trading.

• Potash is upgraded at Cowen.

Cowen raises Potash (POT) from Underperform to Market Perform this morning.

The shares are trading up by 1.5% in premarket.

• Stating that the market is oversold is not very rigorous nor does it add value.

To me, the most obvious statement this morning is that the U.S. stock market is oversold.

This statement (heard from many origins this morning) is not very rigorous nor do I know how it adds value.

There ain't no special sauce.

Charts show us where we have been not where we are going.

The fundamental headwinds of disappointing economic and profit growth coupled with a souped-up valuation rise in 2013 and the threat of higher interest rates form the foundations for my market concerns in 2014-2015.

More than anytime since 2009, we might be in a market of stocks -- a two-way market in which superior individual stock selection will reward investors.

• Here are his morning musings.

The gospel according to Peter Boockvar:

Now that Putin has checked his Crimea box, we get to see the extent of the sanctions that will now be placed on Russia in return from the EU and US. The immediate assumption is that they will be soft ball which in turn may embolden Putin to look to check another box, that of eastern Ukraine. Putin will address his Parliament tomorrow. We'll see but at least for today, European and US stock markets don't want a tough sanction back and forth and its why they are rallying. The Russian Micex index and Russian bonds are also rebounding and the ruble is up after initially falling to fresh lows. The flight to safety trade though is not unwinding much as the US 10 yr yield is up by just 2-3 bps and gold is flat. The euro is also little changed even after a slight downward revision to EU CPI. This whole Russia/Ukraine episode over the last few months reminds of these famous movie lines, "What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men." Where's Cool Hand Luke now when we need him to respond?

After the move by the PBOC over the weekend to widen the yuan trading range to 2% from 1% from the daily rate set, the onshore traded yuan is moving to the lowest level vs the US$ since April. This move is another baby step in the march toward a more freely floating currency and just quickens the direction to where the yuan wants to trade anyway and with more volatility. The Shanghai index rebounded about 1% overnight after details of the Chinese urbanization plan began to take more shape as this is the main source of economic growth in the coming decade. Copper is bouncing slightly for a 2nd day in response but remains below $3.0.

A weaker yen on hints that the BoJ is ready to 'do more' around the April consumption tax increase didn't help the Nikkei which fell .4% overnight, possibly responding more immediately to the Russia news before European markets started trading. If the weakness continues tonight we have to assume the Nikkei will rally sharply but if it doesn't, it will say a lot about the BoJ's hold over their stock market.

This week we go from one macro market moving event to another and that being the FOMC meeting and Yellen's first press conference where she'll have to explain what 'qualitative guidance' is. While there is an amazing nonchalance in my opinion on the part of many with the Fed tapering, I'm more worried about it than Putin and the Ukraine this year. Data wise, the first March industrial number is out today with the NY manufacturing index followed by the February IP figure and NAHB March builder sentiment survey.

• I start the week at 10% net long, and my favorite trade/investment remains short bonds.

I'm off to a very late start this morning as I was at a friend's daughter's wedding last night.

I start the week at 10% net long, the largest long position I have had in 2014.

My favorite trade/investment remains short of U.S. bonds.