Walk Like an Egyptian $$

I often write or audioboo about the reason du jour for the stock market action. Right on cue, today's sell-off is blamed on Egypt and the Nasdaq mix-up from this morning.

But this time, it was probably for real.

Yes, we've been due for a pullback. Yes, bullish sentiment has been an extreme. I think all of us have heard that the third year of a Presidential year all but guaran-damn-tees a 20% stock market return. Even the Michigan sentiment numbers came in pretty nice.

All we needed was something unexpected. Nah, not the PIIGS. The financial chaos there has been televised more than Leave it to Beaver re-runs. It's easy, maybe lazy, to blame any down-tick on the PIIGS. But it doesn't last because we already know about it.

I give you Egypt. What the heck has Egypt been up to the last 30 years? They've mostly been out of the headlines, except for a 1980's song by the Bangles. (Picture is of Susanna Hoffs, fwiw). But what does this mean for the long term?

Probably nothing - in the long term.

But in the short term, I think this and the recent unexpected news from Apple and Google are going to contribute for the reasons du jour for a little while.
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I made the switch from DirecTV to ATT Uverse. You know, the latter is taking my neighborhood by storm. For all the fear of ATT losing iphone subscribers to Verizon, ol' Ma Bell is picking up lots of TV subscribers.

Just saying.