As of 3:47p.m., there is only $30 million to buy market on close. 

I am outta here early to finish up my quarterly analysis.

Thanks for reading my diary and enjoy the evening.

I am picking at General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) longs now.

Among other reasons, my expectation for a decline in the U.S.  dollar should be auto shares' friendly.

My view is that the shares have a  positive reward vs. risk, though not an exceptional ratio.

This chart indicates there might have been some hedge fund covering in emerging markets.

View Chart »View in New Window »

Global equity markets are marching upward as global fixed income continues to drop lower in price and to go higher in yield.

That is occurring with less-than-consensus coincident and forward economic indicators.

Banks and selected leadership appear to be breaking out of trading ranges to the upside.

Although the general advance seems to be artificial with precious little volume , price is truth.

That said, in certain cases, the inmates may have taken over the asylum ¿ for example, with Shake Shack (SHAK).

 Being reactive continues to be my operating mantra in this low volume climb.

The 10-year U.S. note is approaching 2.15%, which is up almost 60 basis points from a recent bottom.

 TLT is down $16 from late January.

Winners and losers from last year's Ira Sohn Conference

During today's ramp, I have upped my short exposure with additional shorts in Comcast (CMCSA), SPY and QQQ.

As I have mentioned several times recently, I am chomping at the bit to take my net short exposure MUCH higher.

I currently sit a bit more than modestly net short as I get "direction" from Mr. Market.

That said, a turn into the red today -- which seems ludicrous, but is quite possible -- will take me to a more aggressive short exposure in my quest to be more reactive and less anticipatory.

Coincident with a continued rise in interest rates, the banking sector, which is among my most favored, is continuing to thrive, led by Best Ideas List and former "Trade of the Week" JPMorgan (JPM).

From my perch, the shares of JPM and the others have a long runway from here.

• Midday musings from Sir Arthur Cashin:

Market churns since 10:00 as yields creep up again. The bulls have traded in a relatively narrow range (S&P 2115/2121 and Dow 18080/18134). Let's see if they can break out of range.

Trading desks are trying to play the Sohn Conference by looking at list of speakers and guessing what the "topics" will be.

The run rate at 12:30 projects to an NYSE final volume of 680/760 million shares.

Steve Roach, Yale University economist, on a "delusional" Federal Reserve.

With bond yields rising again, I am adding to my closed-end municipal bond fund holdings -- as I mentioned earlier.

Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn highlights Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) as a short at Ira Sohn conference. 

My Trade of the Week is shorting PowerShares QQQ Trust (QQQ) at $109.60 (where I just added this morning).

My rationale:

• An overbought Nasdaq
• An overvalued Nasdaq -- "old" tech (e.g., Microsoft (MSFT)) has rallied big and so has "new" tech (Priceline (PCLN), Amazon (AMZN), etc.).
• Recent EPS misses (e.g., LinkedIn (LNKD))

The last several "Trades of the Week' have worked out well -- most recently iShares Russell 2000 (IWM) short, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) long and Lincoln National (LNC) short.

The Ira Sohn conference is being held today and tomorrow in New York City.

It is a forum in which the top investment managers in the world present some of their best ideas.

Here is today's schedule:

12:05PM  David Einhorn, Greenlight Partners

12:20PM  Barry Rosenstein, Jana Partners

12:35PM  Keith Meister, Corvex Management

1:05PM    Lee Cooperman, Omega Advisors

2:10PM     Larry ROobins, Glenview Management

2:40PM    Mala Gaonkar, Lone Pine Capital

3:10PM   Jeff Gundlach, Double Line Capital

4:20PM    David Tepper, Appaloosa Management

5:20PM Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital Management

Factory orders advanced 2.1%, in line with March's climb but revisions in February took that month's print down to -0.1% from +0.2%.

Excluding transports, factory orders were unchanged in March with February revised to +0.1% from +0.8% .

Consumer goods rose better than expected (+0.8%) while non-durable goods were -0.3% and durables +5.5%. Backlogs were a similar story, with consumer goods seeing stronger backlogs while the ex-transports industrial backlogs were still weak.

The data is backward looking and is confirmation that March activity improved modestly from January-February -- though the bounce was weaker than consensus expectations. The positive take was that consumer goods continued to improve, which given the stronger labor market is not surprising . 

• Early morning musings from Sir Arthur Cashin:

Bulls continue to push but volume not impressive. Next targets are the intra-day highs of 4/27 (circa Dow 18176 and S&P 2106). Data at 10:00 induces a brief pause.

Should closed-end municipal bond funds drop further in price, I would consider increasing my sector exposure by as much as 50%.

On average, non-taxable yields are 6%, discount to net asset value approximates 6.5% and leverage is about 33%.

I added to Radian (RDN) and Bank of America (BAC) longs.

I shorted more Comcast (CMCSA) on the EPS report (I have no clue why the shares traded +$1.45).

'There's been more stupid stuff written and stupid stuff done' [surrounding stock buybacks than on almost any other corporate topic]" -- Warren Buffett

My take on this weekend's Woodstock for Capitalists, Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.B) Annual Meeting, was that it was much like a Beach Boys concert. It was predictable, there were no new songs (or meaningful information uncovered) and it was quite repetitive.

But like a Beach Boys concert, it was enjoyable.

Warren Buffett's life and the history and composition of Berkshire Hathaway have been materially combed over by numerous observors over the last five decades, but there is always new information to be uncovered.

Importantly, in order to discover new revelations, I learned in my research process that it is almost as important in structuring the phrasing of a question to Warren than the question itself, because Warren is deft at taking the words of a question and then giving the answer HE wants to answer.

Though it might sound self serving, I would encourage Warren to enlist a cadre of questioners who ask more substantive and hard-hitting (and respectful) questions (much like I did two years ago), in order to uncover new revelations from The Oracle and to improve the vision of Berkshire Hathaway (both with and sans Buffett).

Here is a recap of my questions (and Warren and Charlie's answers) back in 2013. I spent nearly two months in crafting my queries and I think the responses were revelatory.

Some solid morning commentary (coupled with a nice shout out) from Raymond James' Sir Jeffrey Saut this morning.

"For Trading, Not Eating!"

"If I had to characterize the market in 2015, I would call it a 'trading sardine market' not an 'eating sardine market'."

  - Doug Kass, captain of Seabreeze Partners

My friend, pal, buddy, Dougie Kass issued the above quip from his perch in Palm Beach over a week ago that reminded me of something I wrote about years ago. I like this story:

"While gold was first discovered in Alaska during the 1870s, the 1890s have come to be known as the Yukon-Klondike Gold Rush days, as thousands of rugged individuals swarmed to the northern climes to find fortune and glory. Unsurprisingly, during the winter of 1896-97 the Alaskan ports were frozen solid and therefore closed to all shipping traffic. Food became very scarce and very expensive since new supplies had to be brought in over land at great hardship. Reportedly, a can of sardines that had cost $0.10 in New York could be priced at 10 times that amount by the time it reached the gold miners in Alaska. Still, there was great demand even at such inflated prices. For instance, in one remote mining town the price of a can of sardines was sold at rapidly escalating prices from $10.00, to $30.00, then $50.00. Finally, one desperately hungry miner paid $100.00 for a can of the highly sought after sardines. He took it back to his room to eat. He opened it. To his amazement he discovered the sardines were rotten. Angered, he found the person who sold him the tin and confronted him with the rotten evidence. The seller was amazed and shouted, 'You mean you actually opened that can of sardines? You fool; those were trading sardines, NOT eating sardines!'"

   - Anonymous

Trading sardines indeed, except I have seen a lot of folks attempting to trade this market over the past few months all to no avail. What has typically happened is that one day they are able to make some money, but the next day they give that profit back.

Dougie even tweeted on this by noting, "The market has no memory day to day!" I have not gone back and counted, but my sense is that over 50% of this year's sessions have seen 100 point daily swings in the D-J Industrials (INDU/18024.06) with one day being up and the next day being down. If you can trade that successfully, you are a better trader than I am, which is why I have not attempted to trade this market all year. Clearly, sometimes me sits and thinks, and sometimes me just sits!

As my friends at the sagacious Bespoke organization wrote Friday morning:

"As of yesterday's close, the S&P 500 has essentially not changed since the closes on: 4/17, 3/30, 2/12, and 12/24. What's more, 19 of the 88 trading days since 12/23 have seen a tick that included yesterday's closing price. US equities are on a treadmill thus far in 2015, with year-to-date gains of 1.3% for the S&P 500 hiding a very persistent sideways move that looks to be resolving into an ascending wedge (chart 1). While this is classically a bearish formation, we are less certain that it must resolve to the downside. However, do expect a relatively large move in either direction when the wedge does break, with a break of the 200-DMA entirely possible should the bears take control."

Anthony Scaramucchi and Gary Kaminsky have revived a classic, "Wall Street Week."

I believe the new "Wall Street Week" is destined to become an institution as was Lou Rukeyser's show.

Here was this weekend's episode, which featured Carl Icahn in a broad interview that covered numerous bases previously uncovered.

For example, in the show I learned that Carl was from Far Rockaway (I was from the neighboring town, Rockville Centre) and he was a cabana boy at Malibu Beach Club (as was I!).

Watch "Wall Street Week." You will get hooked, as was with Lou's show and now with Mooch and Gary's version.

I am negative on both stocks and bonds for numerous reasons, the most important of which is the likelihood that (for the fourth consecutive year) global economic growth and U.S. corporate profit growth will disappoint relative to expectations. 

Secondly, the chasm between rising financial asset prices and the real economy is ever widening. Thirdly, with fiscal policy inert and uninvolved, the burden of engineering a more buoyant trajectory of growth has been placed on  monetary authorities.

Unfortunately, zero interest rates and quantitative easing are now doing more bad than good, disadvantaging the savings class (which has caused consumers to hoard cash and reduce spending), encouraging malinvestment and retarding investment (capital expenditures) in plant and equipment.   

Stocks

I expect a negative return in stocks this year.

When the correction comes, it will probably be broad based. Especially vulnerable are social media stocks that incorporate unreasonable expectations for profit growth. In addition, numerous stocks are vulnerable to secular changes in the business landscape (typically caused by advances in technology). 

On the bullish side, I remain positive on selected equities (especially banks) and with certain sectors (e.g. closed-end municipal bond funds). The latter group (funds) has cheapened coincident with the recent rate rise and I have expanded the size of my long exposure as prices have retreated. The size of the rate rise that I am projecting is not expected to be a hurdle to more fund capital gains (on top of hefty non-taxable yields) over the balance of 2015. On the other hand, the rate rise will be large enough to positively impact banking industry fundamentals.

Bonds

Bonds, in the U.S. and outside of the country are overpriced. 

The core reason for my pessimistic view of the asset class is that the 10-year U.S. note yield is discounting an unrealistically low growth rate for real GDP domestic growth. In addition, signposts of a climbing inflation rate are growing more conspicuous and wage growth is beginning to accelerate, while energy prices, rents and other costs (of the necessities of life) are rising.

Outside of the U.S., bonds are particularly expensive.

But with the yield on the 10- year U.S. note having risen by almost 50 basis points in the last few months (to 2.12%), I would not be surprised if rates dropped back a bit over the summer.

Timing a Short

We all recognize the importance of timing in our investment decisions.

It has so far not paid to be anticipatory of the adverse trends impacting both the stock and bond markets and I am holding on to the notion of being more reactive in strategy of expanding my short book.

My short exposure in stocks is still relatively low, particularly relative to my conviction of the negative outlook.

Though I believe that rates will back down in the near term, my short exposure in bonds is more sizable based on my current perception of reward vs. risk.