Not too impressive.    Since we crashed the market last week by closing out some of our longs (in these low-volume markets – it doesn't take much), the S&P 500 has bounced back, but basically only on three sudden surges, on Thursday and Friday morningings and pre-market Monday.  Other than that, the vast bulk of the action has been sideways now that earnings season is mostly behind us . You can see why we took advantage to cash out at the top – it's hard to find buyers when you are selling more than a few shares and the S&P dropped 5% in two days last week – it doesn't take much to send these dominioes tumbling over.  That's why Powell has a tricky job today (10 am).  He has to mke his keynote speach for the Jackson Hole Conference which is being held on-line because Covid has made it too dangerous to hold a conference – even for a few hundred rich people in a luxury mountain hotel. It's hard to say the virus is behind us as an economic factor when your audience just had to cancell a trip to Wyoming because the disease you are pretending is gone just spiked up again – past last year's levels (when the conference was also cancelled).   Meanwhile, the Fed minions are floating trial balloons about scaling back their monthly stimulus (tapering) from the current $120Bn a month because it has been jacking consumer prices up 10% – and that has been hammering down consumer confidence at a rapid level. This week we've heard quite a few businesses begin to talk about inflation hitting their margins and giving more downbeat guidance moving forward.  We've also heard new about shipping costs and chip prices increasing – the kinds of things that are not at all transitory and can have a cascading effect on the costs of other goods and services .         IN PROGRESS