Default and perish?

Yes. It's somewhat frustrating to realize that the performance of our market is not anchored on local company's earnings, our own domestic news, or our stellar GDP growth. Instead, we're all anticipating how a group of grownups, several thousand miles away from us, will eventually get their act together.

Anyway the news now is that the Republican leadership is trying to leash-in its hard-core conservative tea party hardliners. It appears that these congressmen are bent on creating chaos from the very start, and Boehner has to get them in order.

Well, we small players have no choice but to ready some defense. Today was a good day essentially. I sold all of my BPI, some MBT, some MEG, all of GTCAP at gains, however small. Was able to raise cash to 40% in my BPI port and 20% in my FMS port. Either the foreigners who bought up today's market allowed us some elbow-room budget for averaging down, or some fund managers are confident themselves that a deal will be closed in the next 48 hours.

The answer may not be available until Friday morning, but we should be ready even at opening tomorrow. Make sure to open your favorite news site before PSE opens.