Buy the rumor, sell the news

Buy cheap, sell dear.  Or, buy on the rumor that good stuff is going to happen and sell when it does, or does not come true. That seems to be what happened Thursday in the stock market.

Here is your headline:
U.S. stocks lost sizeable ground Thursday as public sparring among European Union members jolted the market late in the session.

What? More than a dozen countries with different languages, customs, history and cultures did not fall into line behind Queen Germany?  I am shocked! and by shocked I mean not surprised at all.

The only surprise is that it happened Thursday and not after the Friday summit.

Do you get the feeling that the term summit is overly generous?  Sort of when failing K-Mart joined forces with failing Sears. Maybe Xerox can hook up with Kodak.  Or RIM can marry Palm. Oh wait, Palm did the nasty with flailing Hewlett Packard. Didn't HP buy Compaq, too? It's the Oakland Raider strategy of scooping up the league's cast offs and somehow making a team out of the drek.  But I digress.

Now we are in an analytical pickle. There still is time for some bold action, such as printing trillions of euros and getting it together on selling bonds. Or letting Greece fade off into the deep like Leo did in Titanic.  That would really screw things up because as it stands today, the S&P 500 has failed again- for the fourth time - at the 200-day average.

The third time may be charm but the fourth time is a just bad odor following you around.