Thanks GridKing. While I do absolutely agree with pretty much everything you're saying, namely, that the world's economic system is eventually going to hell in a handbasket, I'm more interested in the short term "story" as it affects my trading, because frankly, that's all the market really cares about. Generally it's very short-sighted, therefore it does not pay to be very long-term oriented.

I shorted ES pretty heavily yesterday and did so primarily (though not only) because it did not seem logical that people will want to hold longs over the weekend with this uncertainty. It worked, and that's the kind of benefit I'm hoping to find by truly understanding what's going on, as it worked nicely when the CDS's were triggered (though it was apparent going into the close that buying was still the order of the day).

As we have seen from credit downgrades, debt ceilings, and all of the hoopla that has been a part of the norm for the last year or two, the market will still do what it wants to do, and my job is only to try to extract from it. The US economic numbers have been strong, and whether or not that is telling of a strong or weak underlying system, is not really that important to me; what's important as a day trader is that I observe the market's reaction to the news, and go with it.

My point is that there are many perma bears out there who have been saying for years that the system is bound to fail, etc., and maybe it is, but it doesn't pay to be a perma bear in this environment, any more than it pays to be a perma bull when the bottom is dropping out as it has done before.

I wasn't around Friday afternoon, was the declaration of CDS trigger prior to market close? Thanks