Ugly, ugly, ugly. Toss in treacherous, too. What a nasty market! The Four E's of the Apocalypse have arrived: Euro, energy, economy, election. The euro's woes are largely of the European Central Bank's making. The guys in charge just can't get their policy act together; their statements contradict each other on the same day, they are masters of inaction. They don't have a "Plan B", but then I'm not so sure they had a Plan A to begin with. Germany's Chancellor thinks a weak euro is good for (export) business, but how are his also-suffering neighbors going to pay for German goods? And soaring oil prices hurt Europe much more than the U.S. They are relatively more dependent on oil than we are, and all oil contracts are denominated in dollars.

Since giant hedge fund LTCM crashed and burned, currency speculators have faded into the wallpaper. The flight from the euro into dollars is due to capital flows. Europeans are fleeing to U.S. stocks and are buying U.S. companies because our economy is much stronger and interest rates are higher here. Should you worry? The dollar and the euro are so out of alignment, a sudden readjustment could knock the confidence out of our economy and threaten global financial stability, but such a scenario isn't likely. But Uncle Sam did step up to the plate to buy euros in an attempt to support the currency. Unfortunately, that doesn't solve any of the euro's problems, and markets do as they please.

Back at the U.S. economy, things are slowing down, and not a few stock market Chicken Littles have appeared in the barnyard. The fear focuses on slowing earnings and revenue growth, zapped by the slower economy, euro translation woes, energy prices and plain old sky-is-falling anxiety. But keep in mind that when the big techs take off, they always go up too much, and when they head south, they overreact on the downside.

Compared to the past, the American economy uses more oil but is much less dependent on it on a relative basis. Our energy use per dollar of GDP is only 60% of what it was in 1970, and the inflation-adjusted price of oil for 1981 was $73/bbl. Corporate America may be better off now, but consumers are going to get pretty grumpy when home heating costs soar this winter. And then there's the election uncertainty. No, I don't have a clue either way...