11/2/12 Get long or hibernate

The market likes to travel light, which is another way of saying it enjoys inflicting maximum pain on the majority of traders (stealing a riff from Landry here). I still think an extended bear is likely for most of 2013, but given the number of negative viewpoints playing right now, the only way down is to first spike up! New highs in the next few weeks will force shorts to cover, and may also force underinvested fund managers to chase. When Newsweek comes out with its next 'nothing but blue skies' cover story on the stock market (probably around February 2013), the bear will emerge. I see two ways to play this scenario: (a) go long on the next pullback and hold until negative sentiment disappears, or (b) simply hibernate until the bear emerges and then go short.