I told you a few months ago that Wall Street would probably start hyping up the market once we got a year-end rally. The "year-end" rally was delayed in December, and was reserved instead for the opening weeks of the New Year.

The Spin Begins
November 28, 2005

We began getting severe cross currents as to whether the market would decline in the first half of 2006, followed by a new bull in 2007, or vise versa. The jury is still out on which one will occur.

Something that is clear is the market is overbought, and was due for a pullback anyway.

This morning we woke up to news that the Asia Pacific markets were taking it on the chin. The Japanese Nikkei was up 40% last year, and their market has fell 6% in the past two trading sessions. It is still unclear as to how and why the sell-off was so severe. I guess the "big boys" who have access to the button that can sell a billion dollars worth of stock in a matter of minutes were getting an itchy finger.

It amazes me how news of a regulators investigation of a Japanese internet company can trigger such a dramatic turn of events. We hear news of financial probes almost weekly, and we don't see that kind of reaction in our markets.