Housing Remains a House of Cards

This market falls apart way too quickly, once again reminding us that this time is more like 1998 and 1990 and 1987 than other times. I can recall taking this week off before and discovering that while I was at the beach, things had fallen apart. Except in 1990, when I ceased going to the beach at all.

Staggering to think how a seller or two of some magnitude can just wreck the tape. It is almost as if some fund of funds found some guy on the beach and told him that he needed to wire $200 million back.

I am sure that won't come out for a couple of months, though.

What's so totally unnerving about this tape is that if you are nimble, you have to buy down 200 and then sell up 200.

Or, if you aren't, you have to walk away from it and forget the almost random movements controlled by hedge funds blowing up around the earth.

Amazingly, it is still not too late to short mortgage companies and homebuilders. I would still have a HGX short on. I would still be shorting H&R Block(HRB Quote). I would still be shorting IndyMac(IMB Quote), which is ramping up like some sort of patient who has awoken from a coma and thinks it can go do 400-meter race. Ridiculous.