Sell-offs in Facebook, Tesla and Twitter show the correction hitting stride

The tone of the market changed on Friday. The difference was more a shift of emotion than economics. Depending on your time frame and financial situation this is either or an opportunity or a huge, raging, fang-toothed monster sized problem. The point is to recognize the shift as part of a definable process. Stocks are correcting. That's not a call. It's not a forecast. It's not even official based on the percentage losses. But those technical definitions are less important than TV pundits would have you believe.

Last Friday was the day we ended the prelims on the sell-off. The Dow went negative for 2014. The S&P 500 closed less than two points above its 200-day moving average. Those were two of the things I told you to look for last Wednesday. On a technical basis if the S&P 500 closes below 1,900 today I'd put the chances at about 75% that it hits 1,800 within a month.

That's what I meant by "air-pocket risk," in the off-chance those borrowing the term were curious. But hitting a couple sort of obvious targets isn't what changed. What mattered about Friday was the merciless selling in high-beta hideouts. Tesla (TSLA) which I'm still long, got crushed by 7%. Twitter (TWTR) took an 8% beating. Facebook (FB) got smoked by 4%.

Losing faith in the "magic" stocks of tech is another sign of progress for this stock market. From September 29th to the close last Thursday Twitter was up nearly 10% despite the overall market dropping 3%. Tesla was up almost 8% over that same time. Facebook was less than 2% from its all-time highs as of last Wednesday night.

I've got nothing against these stocks. In fact, I own shares of Facebook and Tesla. They're high-beta, high-risk names, not hiding places. With Facebook and Tesla up for the year by more than 30 and 57% respectively they shouldn't be safe havens. Corrections are emotional resets. They're job, if you want to call it that, is to remind investors that stocks have risk. The weak hands need to get shaken out of the market and that can't happen as long as newbies are considering the Twitters of the world safe havens.

For all the talk of complacency investors are scared. The cover of USA Today Money is starting to show pictures of bulls getting horribly killed in articles pondering the potential for a loss of $6.2 trillion in profits during the coming crash.

That's a nice start. A good finish to this sell-off will be when we hit the official correction point of 1818 on the S&P 500 but I think we probably work our way to 1,800. That's where I wanna buy.

Related: Stocks take their wildest 2-day ride in 17 years

Today is an official holiday in almost half the country and an unofficial one everywhere except  on Wall Street and in the financial media. Use it to go through your portfolio and consider your positions. Don't panic but don't lie to yourself, either. Remember: your money is yours to manage and grow. Don't panic and don't waste your time bragging in comment sections.

Plan. Anticipate. This market correction is moving along exactly like it should. That's a good thing but only if you treat it is an opportunity.

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