By Popular Demand

I mentioned my former-semi-Rock Star status the other day and have been flooded with emails. Today I woke up  at 4 a.m. and I will be working from the hospital as my mother is having an important surgery. So due to the lack of sleep and against my better judgement, here is yours truly about 16 years ago.

and in an attempt to head off any jokes, here I am today with my wife.

Hopefully I did't just kill my "street cred".


In interesting news this morning, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, is set to be the first political leader to head up an Opec meeting. Iran is in control of the OPEC revolving presidency and Ahmadi-Nejad who is in a power struggle with the conservative Mullahs, has declared himself "acting oil minister" and may head up the June 8th OPEC meeting in Vienna. We'll see if anything political materializes out of this.


Also out today, Japan slides back into recession, no big shocker there.


In other news, Initial Claims come in at 409,000 which is better then last week's 438,000 (upwardly revised from 434,000). The 409k print beat consensus and it looks to be set to become the catalyst that moves the market above the top trendline of the triangle, an event I've been predicting since before the triangle broke down earlier this week. So far, we are right on track as far as expectations go.


We'll see if the open holds the breakout status, but this is looking like the "Crazy Ivan" shakeout I've been looking for.


In other news, DSK has resigned. We'll see how Greece reacts.