Cash is king —especially when the market is due for a 7 percent correction, Dennis Gartman of The Gartman Letter said Thursday on CNBC.
"Yes, today I changed my opinion on stocks. I had been relentlessly bullish since last October. I continued to be bullish in November. I continued to be bullish in December. I bought the gap up in January," he said. "And after yesterday's movement, it had very little to do with what the Fed had to say because markets were moving way before the market moved down. The copper market was speaking to me. Sequestration was speaking to me. And at the end of the day, we had reversals in all the indices."
On "Fast Money," Gartman added that he was "a little bit net short."
"Cash is not a bad thing to be hold. I think this could be a very serious correction, at least 7 percent, and I'm not one to sit for 7 percent corrections," he said.
Citing the Federal Reserve's hint of a shift in quantitative easing, the formerly bullish Gartman said he believed the game had changed.
"They're going to vary the amount of money that goes into the system," he said.
Trader disclosure: On Feb. 21, 2013, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Josh Brown is long AAPL; Josh Brown is long BAC; Josh Brown is long GLD; Josh Brown is long XLU; Josh Brown is long TLT; Josh Brown is long XLF; Josh Brown is long WMT; Josh Brown is long TGT; Josh Brown is long GOOG; Jon Najarian is long ADP; Jon Najarian is long ADP CALLS; Jon Najarian is long GSK CALLS; Jon Najarian is long BWLD CALLS; Jon Najarian is long CSCO PUTS; Simon Baker is long C; Simon Baker is long JPM; Simon Baker is long GOOG; Simon Baker is long PAY; Stephanie Link is long AAPL; Stephanie Link is long GS; Stephanie Link is long CSCO; Stephanie Link is long SBUX; Stephanie Link is long FB; Stephanie Link is long HD; Stephanie Link is long TJX; Stephanie Link is long WY.
