The stock market got off to such a potently wretched start in 2005 that few on Wall Street seemed concerned about whether an NFL or AFL team would win the Superbowl.  Not that investors who are also Eagles fans could have cared. If you’re old enough to remember the glory days of Chuck Bednarik, Maxie Baughan, and, um, Pete Gogolak, then you’ve probably been out of the market since the 1929 Crash anyway. The NFL/AFL indicator didn’t seem to get much airplay this year, but perhaps it only seemed that way to me because any CNBC-watching I do is without sound. The story has been beaten to death in the last few year, for sure, but who’da thunk it was so tired that even CNBC would put it out to pasture?

Putting aside the brain-numbing hype about which TV commercials would be worth watching, XXXIX’s big non-story concerned whether the Superbowl should be declared a national holiday. As if it weren’t one already. Actually, it’s the idea of turning the Superbowl into a three-day-holiday that the petitioners must have in mind, since, Easter excepted, any Sunday holiday is all but wasted if it can’t spill over into Monday.

Wall Street could have used a little spillover yesterday, since there was not much else happening. You know things are slow when investors seize on news that Celebrex may not be as toxic as we thought as a reason to pump stocks. Pump them to about 4 psi, that is. Shares coasted to a largely unchanged finish, like an armored truck with four flat tires coming to rest on a 1% grade. Things can’t stay this dull for long, so just you wait.  With a 11231 target on the Dow, I’ve all but promised a 500-point rally over the near term. What on Earth will investors be thinking when they cause it to happen?  Dumb question, since their rational minds appear to have departed the planet long ago. Here’s that Dow chart, so that you don’t lose heart: