When opportunity knocks as loudly as it did yesterday, we should always check the peephole before opening the door. The opportunity I am alluding to is a stock market once again seemingly energetically on the rise. The Dow Industrials gained nearly a hundred points, and other broad indices rose along with it, making just about any stock that we might have been eager to short a day earlier an even juicier play now. There was eBay, for one. We’ve been itching to lay out shares near $30, having recently projected their eventual collapse to below $20. But if stock in the world’s biggest flea market looked like a fetching short on Wednesday, take a gander at the succulent little temptress it has become now! eBay opened on a gap of almost $3, drew a few shallow breaths and then took off again, ending the day almost $4 above the previous day’s close.

(Click on chart to enlarge)

And let’s not overlook Citi, another feisty stock that I have all but promised you will eventually trade for less than $10 a share. A few more days like yesterday and the banking giant’s shares will be on the new highs list, trading above $50 and beckoning pessimists with the pungency of carrion baking on a rock in Buzzard Canyon.

It is at times like this that we want to be extra careful about what we wish for. Granted, there are probably a dozen good reasons to believe one could not possibly go wrong wagering that the stock market is about to plummet. But we strain to recall an instance in which a genuine opportunity arrived in such a tempting package. While this one could be the real thing, it could also turn out to be a nasty surprise from the Unabomber.

Although that prospect alone would not dissuade us from trying to leverage the stock market’s inevitable fall to earth, it does impel us toward greater caution. In today’s Touts I’ve outlined a bearish strategy we can use in Citi, as well as in other stocks. It aims to profit handsomely if the floor drops out, but to lose nothing or even make a few dollars if we are completely wrong.  Check it out, since this is a gambit we intend to use often in the weeks and months ahead.

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Australian Seminar?

Quite a few of you have indicated you are likely to attend the hidden-pivot seminar in New York this October. I’ve also heard from about a half-dozen Australian readers and subscribers who said they’re interested but that it would be too far to travel. However, I’m willing to come to Sydney or Melbourne if I can fill a class, so let me please hear from you if that would work.

The New York session will be a no-frills version of the course that I gave in Denver, offered at a significant saving over the original price. After that there will probably be just one more session offered – in San Francisco, late in 2006 or early 2007 -- but that would be the last for a long while.

The course includes post-grad mentoring via a chat group that some of my former students have set up. If you’ve been impressed with the accuracy of my forecasts, this is an opportunity you should not pass up. Please let me know via e-mail if you are serious about coming.