My business partner summed up the week's market action as, "The biggest blessing in life is that the market's closed for two days and can't make me crazy over the weekend." It's nuts out there. Each minute seems to depend solely on the earnings report issued in the previous minute. We were shocked, SHOCKED! when Big Blue (IBM) announced that some firms may cut back on computer spending in the fourth quarter, waiting for Y2K to come and go. What a surprise! Who would've thought?

Seriously, what decade are these guys living in? We can expect distortions and wacky numbers right into January. So that means fuggedaboudit or take advantage of irrational dips to buy stocks you want to own. The CPI was up an OK 0.4%, mostly due to tobacco, so analysts, at least nonsmoking analysts, aren't too concerned. Other indicators released during the week fell on the slightly slowing side of the expectations fence.

"Change is good, but cash is better." -Ace Jackson