While I am not complaining, the Dow closed down 137 — only 137! It had been down as much as 296 points in the morning. With chaos in the Middle East, with no resolution to to European credit crisis, and with heart-breaking tragedy in Japan, the U.S. market is not showing as much sympathy as expected.

I still need to research the particulars, but have you noticed how often we’ve seen the market rally in the late afternoon recently. Overall, the volume remains light, especially in the mornings. Whatever volume there is, it seems to be in the afternoon, with an unusually high of level of buying.

In a normal bear market, one expects heavy selling at the close, but not this one, and that smells fishy to me. Of course, it could mean this is an abnormal bear market . . .