Whoopee! Stocks are up!

What's going on?
- Marvin Gaye

The wave is spreading across the middle east. It started in North Africa with Tunisia, spread to Eqypt. Then it detoured to Yemen and now it is in Jordan. While Jordan's dissolution of the government seems to preemptive, the others are seeing the result of rising food prices and low opportunity.

But look a bit further to the north and lo and behold four of the five PIIGS stock markets are in rally mode. This just after we saw that CDS (credit default swap) premiums are back to crisis levels.

Gold is not really caving in as many have predicted and oil is back in gear after a false trend breakdown. Fear, right? So why is the dollar falling again?

What's going on indeed! These are times that make it oh so interesting to be an analyst. Do I drink the kool aid or look at technical divergences and breakdowns? Do I jump in on any dip or look at the dearth of good buying opportunities and plethora of short sale candidates? Or should I just stay at home with my thesaurus and wait for the next killer snow storm to hit?

Health care is under serious fire but the ISM is up.  Pfizer had flat numbers, dropped 2% in the premarket and is now up 3.2% intraday (yes a 5.2% swing.

And did I mention - the IEF treasury ETF is just broke its rising wedge to the downside.

This little snipped from Charles Payne sums it up:

President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi has passed a set of new laws that make some everyday things a crime - including passing gas.

"I fart in your general direction"
- Monty Python