I was busy today and did not spend much time looking at the market – until the last 45 minutes.  And frankly, the movements are absolutely nuts. 

The Dow fell 470 points in 11 minutes from 3:48 to 3:59.  This was after a 270 point move up move over 5 minutes starting at 3:10.

But this is the norm.  There was a 235 point drop in the last 15 minutes on Monday followed by a 760 point upswing in the last two hours of Tuesday.

This is insane.

From Tony Crescenzi

From Howard Simons at RealMoney.

There have not been many periods when, after one year, the market is down 40% or more.  But that is the current environment as the S&P 500 is down 45% from a year ago at the close today.

In fact, since 1928, a decline of 40% or more on any trading day from a year ago occurred only 1.5% of the time.

However, this is a little misleading.  Many of the 40% declines on any given trading day occurred during a cascading decline, where day after day, the market was at least 40% lower than it was a year earlier.

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.

I am not saying the bottom in home prices is here.  Rather, signs of classic behavior that a bottom is near are at hand.  From Wednesday's Wall Street Journal

LOS BANOS, Calif. -- In this California city, one of the hardest hit in the national housing crash, there's good news: Homes are starting to sell again.

Okay, things are getting silly again in the stock market.  Stocks are being taken out and shot indiscriminately because of the Giant Hedge Fund Liquidation, regardless of quality.  Many, if not most stocks, are now on sale.

Take Apple, which reported a great quarter yesterday but gave conservative guidance (as it usually does).

I started buying on Monday and Tuesday of last week, only to be stopped out on Wednesday.

Well, I went in again today on weakness, but with wider stops this time.  I intend to scale in on weakness over the next few days.

This is a trade.  I expect to sell when the market hits my price targets.