"...but what," you ask?

But where the heck is the put/call ratio?!

Readers know I've been complaining about the lack of fear lately, that I want to see measurable signs of panic to believe a bottom is near.

Well, the VIX did jump by more than two points tooday; at 26 this index is still 10-ish points from where it needs to be, but at least it acted like it should have in a down 160 day on the Dow.

Better yet, this week's Investor's Intelligence survey (released this morning) showed a huge increase in the percentage of bears-- to 44.7%, vs. just 31.9% who are bullish. This is VERY hopeful, as it is rare to get a reading of more bears than bulls, let alone one like this where bears are so firmly in command.

After seeing these hopeful signs, I decided to peek at today's CBOE's put/call stats, and what did I see? 1.08, that's all... still no panic evident from options traders.

The good news is that we're inching toward negative sentiment extremes. The bad news is that we probably need to go even lower to witness the type of fear that will come with a lasting market low.  Ugh.

Athletes in Hock

The sports guy on CNBC (who does a nice job, I think) did a report today on pro athletes losing their homes. Entertaining (not to mention pathetic) as it was, his idea had to have been spurred by this even better, more entertaining article on the topic by the best sports writer on the planet: Rick Reilly, now with ESPN.

I remember seeing some of these stories, but I didn't realize how many athletes had blown through every penny they ever made.  The most startling statistic? Reilly says 60% of NBA players are broke within 5 years of retirement! I was so stunned by this one I just had to look it up further... it turns out it's an estimate, but an estimate from the NBA players association, so they're probably at least in the ballpark.  Wow.

*UPDATE (posted 10 minutes after this article went up)

By the way, here's one example of why I say Reilly's the best sports columnist: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/magazine/life_of_reilly/news/2000/03/14/life_of_reilly/

...the best single sports column I've ever read. Of course, the subject didn't hurt Reilly's cause here.  Enjoy!