If anything has been predictable lately it has been the bullishness heading into the potential of a major government announcement.  No one wants to get in front of a potentially market moving action by the government (even though their actions are unlikely to solve our long-term problems).  As a result you get an uptick in front of every major announcement followed by a sharp sell-off.   Last week it was the Geithner speech.  Yesterday it was the Obama speech.  Today the market appears to be moving up on anticipation of an announcement on the bank plan by Geithner.  The shorts cover, the sellers retreat to their caves and the suckers buy the leftovers….

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the course of the last 25 years it is that government intervention is not going to improve the long-term fundamentals of the stock market.   They created this mess with their liquidity tinkering.  Why investors believe they’ll fix this mess is beyond my grasp….

Buying in front of or after these major announcements is a very risky game to play.

Update (4:03 PM) : That didn’t take long.  Stocks ran up in front of potential news and sold-off on the news.  Obama’s press conference contained few specific details.  At this pace it’s only a matter of time before the market loses all faith in the government’s ability to manage this issue (not that they should have had any faith in their ability to fix it in the first place).