The market opened up strongly this morning with a rally that lasted about thirty minutes.  First, the ISM report came in weaker than expected but still expansionary.  More importantly, as mentioned in this morning’s blog, the European sovereign debt crisis raised its ugly head again, with the rumor that the president of Italy (who faces embarrassing charges about younger women) has fired his finance minister who was pushing their austerity program.  The Italian market was up 1.4% but closed down 4.3%, which is a huge turnaround and the 2011 low for that country.  It didn’t help the U.S. market either!

How long will it take to get this final crisis behind us?  Not anytime soon, unfortunately!