I woke up this morning, groggily turned on CNBC, and noticed that the futures were down 60.

"The Dow is down 60 this morning," I thought, "that's not bad."

Then the Dow futures flashed "Dow down 546."

Those were the S&P 500 futures that were down 60.  Lock-limit down.

The Great Hedge Fund Liquidation / Investor Panic continues as global markets are melting down across the world, with indices falling 8%-9% today.

My skill at picking a near-term bottom appears to be lacking. (A lot appears to be lacking. - ed.) However, I remember the 2002 bottom when you would wake up in the morning and see the futures getting crushed before the open whereas all the crushing in equity prices in the days prior occurred in the cash market when the market was open.  Could we be approaching a bottom now?

I have no idea.  However, I have spent much of my time since I started this blog telling you how markets were getting stupid, most recently in commodities - here and here - and also real estate - here and here.

Now, stock markets are getting stupid on the downside. 

Stocks are being thrown out the window because the margin clerks are in control and retail investors are in panic mode.

I have been in two minds about this market recently.  On the one hand, I have a trading long, and want the market to go up.  On the other hand, I want the semiconductors to get crushed so I can back up the truck for the inevitable cyclical upswing in a year or three hence, and its much easier for the chips to get hammered when the market is getting whacked.

I am eying a basket of semiconductor and capital equipment companies as well as the ProShares Ultra Semiconductor Index, ticker USD.  The USD closed at $15 on Thursday.  It was $100 last summer.  I expect it will approach those levels again in the future.