You're hot. Yeah!

Feels good too. Feels so good it reminds you of the good old days when all you did was look and buy.

Felt so good you even left early yesterday.

You checked out at 4:15, went to the driving range and hit some balls. Even sprung for a session with the pro. And the weather was so sweet you decided to walk through the park on your way home.

Checked out the scene, too.

Because your long positions are working, baby.

Working!

You were even relaxed. Haven't felt this relaxed in a long time.

At least not since the Yankees signed Mike Mussina.

Shorting? Here? Why? Both good and bad stocks are up. Big, too.

But you still need more and you hate chasing stocks. Chasing is for amateurs and "wise guys" who lift offers.

Anyone can buy a breakout.

You want to buy something before it breaks out.

What's left?

There'll be time to look for stocks in the morning.

After sleeping in a little.

Working!

And here's what a client of mine wrote back. In the interest of full disclosure, the guy who wrote this has had some of the best numbers around over the past three years, so he's worth a listen:

How does it feel today? How's about another imaginary conversation?

I think it's OK, don't you?

I guess, but I'm getting tired of this, aren't you?

What do you mean?

Up one day, down the next. I'm exhausted. I feel like it looks just good enough on up days and just not bad enough on days to keep me involved.

At the end of the week, I'm not really going all that far.

You're just in the wrong stocks.

Call it what you want.

The right stocks turn into the wrong stocks week to week.

So while the sentiment was clear on the Sixers vs. the Lakers -- everyone was talking about the Lakers sweeping the Sixers and contrary opinion won out -- the sentiment is much less clear on the overall market.

I am sure of a few things, though:

1. The S&P 600 is bullish. I've focused on small-caps over the past six weeks and believe this is the area where investors can achieve solid returns without the day-to-day agita of large-cap stocks. (If you need help with agita, please let me know.) See No. 3.

2. Consensus (at least the people I canvass) believes the second half of the year will be better than the first. I'm not so comfortable with this idea, and such sentiment readings tell me that the second half is probably going to be as tough as the first.

3. There is definitely a Bonds Bubble. I'm not talking about the 30-year Treasury bond (or the 10-year Treasury note), though I've written on that topic before. (In short, the 30-year T bond/10-year T note are sales, and I expect long-term interest rates to rise.) I'm talking about Barry Bonds. Last night, the San Francisco Giants' left fielder hit his 32nd home run of the season after similar action earlier in the week, in which he hit his 30th homer. He reached the 30 home-run mark faster than anyone, Babe Ruth and Mark McGwire included, in major league history. Talk about a bubble.

I thought I'd seen it all over the past few years -- what with Mark McGwire hitting 70 home runs in 1998 and Sammy Sosa hitting 66 that same year and the Nasdaq up 40%. Then in 1999 McGwire hit 65 and Sosa hit 63 and, lo and behold, the Nasdaq boomed with an 86% gain. Now Bonds comes along and, so far, is ahead of them all. Bonds hit his league-leading 32nd home run in his 60th game, moving ahead of Ruth's pace in 1928 (30 homers in 63 games) and McGwire's pace in 1998 (30 homers in 64 games). And, in a game where a 30% success rate (70% failure rate) is considered Hall-of-Fame material, 57% of Bonds' hits this season have gone for home runs, and he's on pace to hit 86 by season's end. My friend says if Barry were a stock, his symbol would be HR.

So the Federal Reserve was trying to re-inflate (reflate?). But do you think Greenspan & Co. had any idea they would've affected Bonds this much? Probably not. But they certainly did think, at least in my opinion, that they would've had more of an effect on large-cap stocks. Meanwhile, their efforts to aid the market and investors/consumers -- because they believe the market is responsible for consumer spending (perhaps the Fed should consider that stock market gains are responsible for foolish consumer spending) -- are having a tremendous effect on small-cap stocks.

I don't think the Dow Jones Industrial Average makes a new high. I don't think it makes a new high because I don't believe my market bellwether, General Electric (GE:NYSE - news - commentary), makes a new high.

I think the market (for argument's sake, let's call it the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq) frustrates both bulls and bears for the remainder of the year: Large-cap bulls don't really get paid, nor do large-cap bears.

Some stocks I am focusing on here include:

• MTR Gaming (MNTG:Nasdaq - news - commentary) closed at $10.30 Thursday. In the interest of full disclosure, I have been pushing this one for a while and mentioned it during a recent appearance on Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser. I think the stock works to $15 and would use pullbacks to $9.50 to $9 to add to positions.

• Dial (DL:NYSE - news - commentary) closed Thursday at $14.19. I've been pushing this one, too. I like the fact that the stock is rounding and is above upward-sloping 50- and 200-day moving averages. This type of pattern (I know this may sound nebulous) has been rewarding this year: This stock has gone through a huge decline, bottomed and rounded off, and its 50- and 200-day moving averages have begun to slope upward. There's resistance at $15 to $16, but I think the stock will get through there and work to $20.