With the price of a barrel of crude currently wafting north of $120, Wall Street seems oddly, if not to say blithely, unconcerned. How else to explain a 50-point rally in the Dow on a day when oil prices roared to new all-time highs, violently reversing last week's brief shakeout? Oil futures closed yesterday above $120 for the first time, settling at 121.80, a dollar off their intraday peak. Over the last three sessions, quotes have risen $9.32, or a little more than 8 percent. And they could go significantly higher, too, since there's an unachieved Hidden Pivot target just above $131 that implies more upside of at least 10% over the near term. If so, can $5 gas and the nationalization of what remains of the nation's airlines be far behind? And what about the part of U.S. economy that moves on trucks? It already costs $1,000 to fill the tank of an 18-wheeler. And even at a 'mere' $3.60 a gallon, the average family is paying $4,300 per year to fuel two cars, up from $3,600 less than a year ago. Amazingly, none of this seems to be troubling investors at the moment, assuming the upward skew of shares since mid-March reflects their true mood. One stock in particular, Apple, has led the charge, gaining ground on more than 80% of the trading days during that period. Recall that when Apple was plummeting from $203 to $115 in January and February, there was talk that sales of the Cupertino firm's pricey iPhones, iPods and computers would suffer during a prolonged recession. But if falling sales were a concern a month ago, they evidently aren't now, Apple shares having recouped more than 80 percent of the ground lost earlier in the year. We're not sure how far this 'service-sector
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