As of 3:47 p.m., there is $375 million to buy market on close.

Thanks for reading my diary today and all of the week.

Enjoy the weekend with your families.

I am itching and very close to moving "all in" short, but -- as I have remarked over the course of the week -- I promised myself to be more reactive than anticipatory in a backdrop of jerky and random moves.

That said, today I took more than baby steps in shorting additional SPY and QQQ at $210.40 and  $108.90, respectively, and I am now at one of my highest net short exposures in a number of months.

The chasm between financial assets and the real economy grows ever wider.

As always, I may be wrong in view, and shorting is not for most. But I am of the strong conviction that generally speaking reward vs. risk is unattractive. 

I asked the question early this morning on Twitter whether the establishment of CNBC's fancy headquarters in San Francisco marked a top in the technology and social-media industries.

I received quite a lot of responses to my tweet about this possible thin reed market indicator.

My comment was not meant literally. I was just asking the question and awaiting responses by followers.

That said there are several good counters to my question:

• Bloomberg TV already had a bureau there where it generates several hours of programming each day.
• More importantly, business and finance are moving to the West Coast -- especially to Los Angeles, San Francisco and, of course, Silicon Valley.

We, or I, have an East Coast-centric view, but the center of power and action have begun to move out there.

I am back from multiple meetings, with stocks at session highs.

My take from today is that Mr. Market has absolutely no memory from day to day. 

As a result, one can have little confidence in sizable bets.

Stated simply, I have made no trades yet today.

The Dow and S&P have rallied to the previously mentioned levels twice. Each time, they pulled back to the same neckline (Dow 17,859 and S&P 2,087). So now we have a clearly defined range for further testing. 

Gold is under pressure again. Now it's down on the year.

The run rate at 12:30 projects to an NYSE closing volume of 740/820 million shares.

• From Sir Arthur Cashin:

Today's rally has taken the Dow and S&P back to the level of yesterday's late morning rebound (circa S&P 2102 and Dow 18,000). Pushing through could be big help to bulls, while rolling over could re-accelerate selling.

• From The Lindsey Group's Peter Boockvar:

The ISM manufacturing index for April was unchanged m/o/m at 51.5, .5 pt below expectations and holding at the lowest level since May 2013. New orders though did lift to 53.5 from 51.8 but remains below the 6 month average of 55.1. Backlogs remained below zero at 49.5 for the 3rd month in the past 4. Inventories at the manufacturing level fell 2 pts to 49.5 and follows a big inventory build in Q1 that was due in part to the clogging up of supplier channels due to the west coast port strikes. Inventories at the customer level remained lean at 44. The disappointment within the data was the employment component which fell 1.7 pts to below 50 at 48.3. It's the first trip below 50 since May '13 and at 48.3 is at the lowest level since September '09. After 3 straight months of contraction, export orders bounced by 4 pts to 51.5 but just 9 of the 18 industries asked saw growth. The 6 month average is 50.7. Easing of constraints now that the port strike has ended was seen in the Supplier Delivery component which fell to the lowest since May '13 at 50.1 (the lower the number, the faster the deliveries) vs a recent peak of 58.6 in December. Prices paid rose 1.5 pts to 40.5, the highest since November as commodity prices rebounded but it's still well below 50.

As a reminder, today's figure measures the direction of sentiment, not the degree and while 15 of 18 industries reported growth, the headline figure just 1.5 pts above the breakeven between growth and contraction points to just modest growth in manufacturing. The breadth of growth though was an improvement vs March where just 10 industries of 18 saw growth. Overall, there was no bounce off the soft Q1 and the head of the ISM is saying that there are still some lingering impacts from the port strike and the oil price drop is causing concern with anyone related to the industry. With respect to the drop in employment, ISM is guessing that it may be due in part to the difficulty of finding BOTH skilled and unskilled labor. I don't understand why it's hard to find unskilled workers however but can clearly understand his point on skilled.

Construction spending in March was a miss. It fell .6% m/o/m vs the estimate of up .5%. Both private and public sector construction fell. Private residential construction saw an outright decline of 1.6% m/o/m. Bottom line, this figure will lead to a modest cut in the Q1 GDP revision all else equal but with just .2% growth reported initially, it won't take much more to see a negative figure in the final print.

The final April UoM confidence figure was unchanged with the initial read at 95.9, about in line with expectations and is the 2nd best read since '07. One year inflation expectations were 2.6% vs 3% in March, 2.8% in February and 2.5% in January. As seen this week, the Fed said "consumer sentiment remains high" and they are right but this is just a coincident indicator as I've said many times and says nothing about growth in the future.

Notwithstanding the mediocre ISM, weak construction and in line confidence data (which is never market moving), the 10 yr yield is now back to 2.10% after touching it yesterday. On a closing basis, 2.10% would be a 7 week high.

"When you give away something for free, the prospects for the number of things that you give away look damn good.

I have always marveled at the power of free. For example, it is amazing to behold the draw of free food -- even in the canyons of Wall Street's top banks managing directors and assistants swarm like seagulls to get a plate of wings and cold fries or greasy pizza. It is hard to deny that the free-ness isn't the driver.

Personally, my lunch standards definitely fall at a price of zero compared to full price.

I always come back to the following thought when considering all these great new social media platforms: When was the last time you were deterred from trying something that was free? How is this basic issue not discussed more often?

I sure as hell hope people like your thing or service enough if all they have to do is type in their 20 character email address to use it. If you are selling something at a loss or at cost I would hope you are beating the established players that the market expects to make a profit, right?"

  - Kass Diary, Avoid Most Social Media Stocks 

Despite some dissimilarities, given this week's recent high profile misses at LinkedIn (LNKD), Twitter (TWTR), Yelp (YELP), Aerie Pharmaceuticals (AERI), etc., some similarities between social media and biotech stocks to certain tech and Internet stocks in the late 1990s doesn't seem to be too farfetched.

It "bears" repeating this 2014 column from my Diary in which I point out that a lot of things need to go well for the power of free to pay out all that it is promising.  

The Gospel According to Peter Boockvar.

China's state sector weighted manufacturing PMI remained around the flat line at 50.1, unchanged with March and basically in line with the estimate of 50. Each of the internal components were also little changed, especially new orders at 50.2 while employment remained below 50 at 48. The services PMI fell to 53.4 from 53.7 and is now matching the lowest level since December '08. New orders fell back below 50 at 49.1 but expectations for business activity did tick up to 60 from 58.8 which is the highest since September (likely in response to the recent stimulus plans). China's stock market was closed overnight as were most Asian stock markets.

Japan's unemployment fell one tenth in March to 3.4% which matches the lowest level since 1997 and the jobs to applicant ratio held at 1.15, the highest since 1992. The drop in the employment rate however was for the wrong reason as the number of people employed fell but because the number in the labor force fell by more, the overall rate was down. That said, both figures are evidence that the Japanese labor market is still very tight but this has yet to result in a substantive increase in wages yet. Also, the effects of the consumption tax last year still lingers but is about to cycle thru in the data. March household spending fell 10.6% y/o/y (tax hike was April 1st '14) on a tough compare. That though was a bit above the estimate of a drop of 11.8%. A day after the BoJ meeting where nothing new was announced (a lot of QE has been done already), CPI rose 2.3% y/o/y headline, 2.2% core (just ex food) and 2.1% core/core (ex food and energy), all .1-.2 above the estimate. The core rate was up .2% y/o/y taking out the impact of the VAT hike vs zero in February. Getting this figure to 2% remains a BoJ obsession by mid 2016. In response to the data where no major surprises were seen, the Nikkei was little changed, the yen is falling to just shy of 1.20 vs the US$ and the 10 yr JGB yield was higher by 2 bps to a 3 week as it gets caught up in the global sovereign bond market selloff.

The UK is the only major market open in Europe and the PMI manufacturing index was disappointing, falling to 51.9 from 54 and is below the estimate of 54.6. It's the weakest since September. According to Markit, "the slowdown in the rate of increase of output occurred in tandem with weaker growth of incoming new business, in turn led by a decrease in the volume of new work received from abroad...A decline in capital goods new orders is a weak bellwether for business investment spending, while a slowing global economy and strong sterling euro exchange rate are hurting the competitiveness of exporters." It was the domestic side that was on firmer footing mostly led by consumer goods. The 10 yr Gilt yield is lower by 2 bps in response but is still up 16 bps this week to just off the highest level since early March. The pound is lower vs the US$ and euro. The UK PM election is next week.

My friend/buddy/pal Dennis Gartman highlighted one of my concerns (The Banana Man) in his commentary this morning.

"Our old friend, Doug Kass, has this week passed along apicture that we think speaks volumes about the tenor of the markets: it was a picture of a street vendor on his cart with his wares piled up for sale, but looking at a computer screen of stock prices instead of selling his goods. As old Joseph Kennedy said, when the shoe-clerks of the world are giving stock advice it is time to exit the markets... quickly and entirely. Now, it is the street vendors trading stocks that is the sign that the inevitable correction hasbegun, to which we add are parable of wise, former captains of industry on endowment boards decrying 5+5 returns in a year's quarter as unacceptable as evidence that the correction is upon us."

UBS cuts Apple (AAPL) watch forecasts on lackluster interest.

April was a month in which numerous preconceived and consensus investment notions were rejected by the markets.

• The U.S. dollar fell.
• Interest rates in the U.S. rose.
• The U.S. stock market failed to advance.
• The price of crude oil jumped.

The investment message from these meaningful out-of-consensus moves is clear to this observer.

Hide from pundits who express their views in self-confident and even glib terms because the only certainty is the lack of certainty. These sort of views tell you more about the forecaster than the forecast.

That is why, as I expressed in my goals column this week, that I nearly always qualify my observations and views with words like probably, might and could.

If you ever find ME self-confident in view, please confront me because that is never my intention. I have the investment scars on my back (after all these decades) that proves and shows my mistakes!