These were two utterly horrific days and now we are back to 1997 prices. You have NOW officially lived through a market crash. There is no doubt about it:

The Fly reminisces about the first time he saw Dow 7,000:

As I sit here amazed at what I just witnessed, I began to reminisce about this business and my experiences in the market. I remember, working as an intern, back in 1997 when the market broke 7,000. Everyone in the office was elated, high fiving each other, then going to the stairwell to do an 8-ball of blow.

My first crash was in 1987 fresh out of college and working the order desk at a small brokerage in Toronto. The market crashed but I had no money. Big woop. I was pissed about staying late to enter orders missing a Maple Leaf Hockey Game.

Now I am stressed and worried because even though I am doing well, everything around me is crumbling and you can’t control your destiny in utter chaos.

Here is what I did today:

I shorted Wells fargo every 10 minutes and bought more FXP. On the long side, I bought some Google in size in the $260’s, nibbled on some Apple and Visa and bought some indexes on the close (QLD and SSO). It feels like shit, but at 7,500 down from 14,000 how should it feel?

We are in no man’s land because the market is about confidence. There is no confidence so everybody is flipping. If you are not flipping or willing to flip, you will be buried. BURIED!

Tomorrow will be more of the same. You are best off watching.

If you must trade, the hottest hand going right now is my friend UpsideTrader (TWITTER ) who is printing money for followers. Today, he has finally given up on shorting financials , but that is not bullish for as he says, the rest of the market will likely play catch up to the nightmare realities in their wake. That’s much like I said a few days ago with the Citibank stock chart example. We could slither away much like the Citibank chart. Here is the meat of his thoughts:

NOTHING that would make me own a financial for many years to come. Dividends will be eliminated, more equity issued and revenue models that are destroyed beyond repair. If it goes a lot lower than that probably means we are in a Depression anyway and all bets will be off. So XLF? Thanks for the ride-it’s been real.

As far as the market in general goes, we have real problems on a macro basis as you all know and the market is trading more like we are entering a Depression than a Recession. Oddly, I can make the same rationale for being finished with SMN as the stocks in that group have been decimated beyond stock ticker recognition. Look at AKS,BTU, JRCC, STLD,X, MOS, POT. It goes on and on.

I’m flat and real happy as we end another day. I’ve been calling for 5500-6000 and I still will defend that opinion for now, but a rally is coming soon, real soon. Just gab a dart.

So…how do we get to an environment where people see the value of stocks once again and stop flipping them around?

Roger has TWO great posts that NAIL all the things that are wrong and need to get fixed. The first is here . Mark to market is top of the list:

The time has come to drop the arguments over mark-to-market accounting, FAS 157 and fairness. If you can’t finance your book, you are dead. Period. This isn’t about accounting; it’s about survival. This is a plan U.S. citizens, Congress and global financial leaders should be able to get behind. And they should apply the same solution to their problems. Because once we have financial firms with transparent, clean, well-capitalized balance sheets, the motive to stockpile capital is gone. Then we can turn our attention to the real economy where things are just beginning to get bad. But one step at a time; we need to lay the foundation for capital formation as the real economy starts to heal, and it all begins with a healthy banking system.

If you think stocks are cheap and are buying, just know that you can go broke being right.