I'm a man who can admit when he's wrong. As I posted early this morning, I fully expected today's government bailout to mean some good news for the financial sector, as represented by XLF. Boy, was I naïve.

Had I been on my toes, this poor brother might've caught a cool 3% or so, as the XLF moved above $20. I didn't sell though, as I was expecting – well, hoping for – an even higher move. It never came, though, and after 1:00 when the bailout was passed by Congress, the decline started. Check out this 2-day chart.

Fortunately, I had a reasonable stop a few cents above my buy price. I should've set it higher, but I was expecting some movement, and I didn't want to stop it out too early only to see it move upward even more. All in all, I made less than $1 on today's trade, but that's a win in my book given what could've happened.

Now, let's move on

I'm not really sure where to go from here. It might be able to play some more of the general volatility in the market, but as we saw today, there's no "sure thing" out there. With a number of companies merging and getting bought out, there might be some arbitrage plays that are worth looking into. But with credit as tight as it is, its possible some mergers won't take place if the companies can't get the funds they need.