Winsome Wednesdays

I spent a good part of the day in a medical facilty and its waiting room today. and I'm not quite certain how to describe the fare that was playing on the communal, but grossly undersized overhead television.

Obviously I'm spoiled by both content and context.

It certainly wasn't what I was used to watching during the day, as local news production values leave much to be desired.

Unless I'm mistaken or still in some drug induced recovery mode, I think that one of the correspondents adorned in a plaid blazer was named Herb Grunberg and he was accompanied by Brian Mulligan and Candy Drury.

Other than perhaps being a bit more hirsute and much less intelligible, I guess I could learn to like them, if I was destined to spend the rest of my life in a Bizarro universe.

But my stay here was to be a short one. Sugar Momma made me promise, though, not to divulge why I was here, but I am at liberty to disclose that my efforts to perfect an Erectile Dysfunction drug that allowed you to wait 8 hours before seeking urgent medical attention went awry.

Seems that the calculation should take into account the amount of time that it takes to get to the facility.

But despite the utter boredom of the day, it was a welcome change from what is typically "Winsome Wednesday" which for me represents the low point of the week in terms of trading activity and meaningfully relevant news stories.

Lest you think that I don't know the meaning of the word "winsome," let its use just be refelctive of the fact that I was too lazy and unimaginative today to come up with some other word for alliterative purposes.

Yet, when looking for a change of pace, maybe boring Wednesdays are my definition of "winsome."

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Starting the Year Right

Maybe I wasn't listening very carefully today, but this year in the stock market seems to be getting off on the right foot.

For me, that has nothing to do with a 200 point gain, but it has everything to do with platitudes and what is frequently assumed to be the "conventional wisdom" not making their annual appearances.

Okay, maybe the 200 point gain has something to do with it, but I like to think that I'm bigger than that, even though I know that my superficiality won't take me there.

Specifically, getting off on the right foot means that there was a noticeable absence of anyone getting on the typical first trading day of the year talking points.

In the years that I've been fairly addicted to business television the beginning of the year stories are always the same.

Dogs of the Dow, January stock rally, retail sales revisions come in better than expected, Super Bowl Indicator theory and so on.

There's usually also some human interest story, like the twins born in different years.

Great stuff.

I guess I'm so sensitized to these kinds of stories that the recent nightmare I had made so much sense.

Listening to Dana Telsey describe how thisyear, once again Chinese restaurants and movie theaters in major metropolitan areas saw 30% of their annual profits maerialize during the week between Christmas and New Years.

So far, there hasn't even been a summary of best and worst performers, although that has to be related to my inattention.

Although, still, its absence may be plausible. I guess when you can go an entire year and not see anything change in the S&P 500 level, it's almost as if the year had never happened, other than memories of the vomiting during the up and down segments of the ride.

That's exactly why you need to sit in the front row of the roller coaster. Staying ahead of the curve works. Sitting behind someone who vomits doesn't.

Now to be totally fair, I did hear someone refer to the "Dogs of the Dow" theory on Friday, but did so only in the context of pointing out that the list for 2012 looks pretty much like the list for 2011.

That's not the way it's supposed to work, so maybe that explains today's silence. Of course, that silence may make adhering to the theory a good idea, were it not for the stocks involved.

After the past week, which was so utterly boring, it really was nice to see a definitive move, especially in a higher direction, but I pretty much traded myself out for the day after the first 60 minutes.

I'm not usually prone to making New Year's resolutions, but I did so this year.

The first, has already been satisfied.

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