Obama Inauguration: The Market Speaks

While the grand and glorious day began with CNN proffering, in a story last updated at 10 am yesterday, a headline about "Wall Street's Inaugural Rally," (that did admit that "Optimism about Barack Obama's first 100 days as president is running high, but Wall Street's post-inaugural celebration may well be short-lived), in fact we saw yesterday the Dow fall below 8,000, the worst finish since Nov. 20 and the worst inauguration day drop ever.

Not too much should be made of this one way or the other, particularly anything that implies that the president manipulates levers that can make prices, of stocks or anything, move either up or down at his will. (And so far today the Dow has crawled back above 8,000.) But it is worth remembering that as excited, for some very good reasons, as so many were yesterday, Obama's powers of positive influence are smaller than his fans think, and even as much changes, the moon will be still as bright, and the markets be still as endlessly shifting and difficult to control.