Markets
I don't really know what a petard is but I am assuming it has a point on the end and you don't want to sit on it because it would hurt like hell. But Cramer (Mad Money) has impaled himself upon one, an impalation that is accompanied by the usual YouTube evidence over at The Big Picture. In reality, nobody can be accurate in the face of what we call "the Big Surprise," which means something hitting that we had no idea was coming (9-11 would be a Big Surprise). The sudden unraveling of the credit markets complete with the phony bond ratings would qualify as a "Surprise" if not the Big One, and many of us would have had our asses handed to us IF WE DIDN'T HAVE EXIT STRATEGIES in place that are based on chart patterns. My problem with all the stock touts is that they don't have them. The only exception is Bill O'Niel over at IBD. If you use the CANSLIM system complete with bail out signals you didn't get hurt. There is a disease out there called "Triggerphobia" which is the fear of pulling the trigger, usually because you don't want to be wrong, sometimes because you are flat afraid of losing money. Those of you who have Triggerphobia don't belong in the stock market at all. In fact you don't belong anywhere near it. For a record of a miscall of monumental proportions, click on YouTube vid below. But had you taken his advice and bought whatever and had proper exit signals your losses would have been fractional at worst.

But the actual Big Surprise was the so-called "rogue trader" in France who lost $7bln while trading inside of a big bank. Regardless of whether or not there really was a "rogue trader" or just totally incompetent management of the bank is irrelevant; the point is that markets started falling apart on MLK Monday and the Fed panic rate cut was the result. There are plenty of people angry about the cut and the fake reasons for it.