The most violent short-squeeze we've witnessed in more than a week transformed a despairing stock market on Friday into the proverbial lipsticked pig. But don't expect the little oinker to fly much higher when stocks start to trade again on Monday. The rally occurred with such unexpected swiftness, and so late in the day, that even the Wall Street Journal's market wrap-up lagged well behind the excitement and its apparent cause. A half hour after the NYSE closed, and nearly an hour after the blitzkrieg rally began, the Journal's Peter McKay was still reporting that 'Wary Mood Pressures Stocks.' In fact, it was the un-wariest mood imaginable that had turned stocks blithely higher, prompted by a 'report' that there were 'hopes' for a bailout of bond insurer Ambac Financial Group. We put those words in quotes because, an hour after the NYSE closed, it was still unclear where the news had come from. Columnist McKay referred in his lead to 'hopes for a bailout,' and to 'word of a possible deal to bail out the troubled bond insurer' in the next sentence, but he made no further mention of the story/rumor or its source. Thimble-Riggers Even so, there can be little doubt that the story was put into play by some of the most capable arse bandits on the Street, timed as it was to hit in the final half-hour of the trading week. The fact that it could not be sourced immediately, even by The Wall Street Journal, further suggested that the story was a plant -- and a spectacularly effective one at that. To put the reaction in perspective, if you had bought ten S&P futures contracts at 3:20 p.m. (EST), just before the rally took off, you would have made about $75,000 in a little less than thirty minutes. Not that we
LATEST TRADES
