“It is always surprising how small a part of life is taken up by meaningful moments.  Most often they’re over before they start even though they cast a light on the future and make the person who originated them unforgettable.” Anna and the King 1999

“The effort must be total for the results to be meaningful.” Wit 2001

Another day at the casino, and the players are wondering who’s got the most chips. The markets are down fractionally to start the day and let’s see what the mainstream media is blaming a 0.29% aggregate move in the 500 stocks being bought and sold by millions of investors this morning is being blamed on:

U.S. stocks edging lower
Equity indexes edged lower early Thursday, even with Hewlett-Packard rallying a day after the personal-computer company reveals an 8% workforce reduction over the next couple of years.

EUROPE IN CRISIS: Debt crisis taking a toll on German economy | No euro-bond movement at summit

Hmm. HPQ is in the news? Other than the fact that the company’s laying off another 27,000 employees, I’m not sure why anybody should care what HP said last night on its earnings report. Those 27,000 hard working people who are going to lose their jobs now are still just 8% of HP’s workforce, and I’d expect we’ll see another 20,000 jobs cut at HPQ in the next two years too because this company doesn’t have any products that anybody wants anymore other than the giant corporations who are locked into old HP technologies. Dell and HP have missed the mobile and tablet boats and they show no signs of figuring it out. Stick with Apple and Google and leave Dell and HP dead in the water.

Oh, and Greece and the EU debt crisis is in the news since stocks are down. Shocker.

With stocks down and the mainstream media blaming “no meaningful signal from the EU bureaucrats of meaningful steps that the markets will pretend will be meaningful enough to kick the can down the road a few more months or years”, we’re likely right now in the midst of some great pitches. That is why you want to have done some buying at these levels in preparation for the next time the markets rally and the mainstream media reports that there’s something more “meaningful” coming out of the EUcrat backslapping meetings. I think we’re getting closer to seeing some “meaningful” action to the upside, despite (because of?) what the reporters are reporting about meaningless economic stuff from the other side of the world.