Bolling: Nothing Lucky About Rally

Eight seems to be the magic number.

In Chinese numerology, recurring numbers represent luck, and 8/8/08 was thought to be the luckiest day. Three eights were the perfect day to launch the Olympics. However, that day the luck was flowing here in our equity markets rather than in Beijing where the numerologists reside.

Think about this for a minute. If someone told you that there was a brand new conflict between Russia, a big oil producer with 200 million residents, and its small (population 4.5 million) border neighbor Georgia, and if you heard that Russian tanks were rolling and casualties were mounting, what would you guess the reaction would be in the oil market? Up $5? $10?

I know I would have guessed a big move up in oil and an opposite reaction in equities.

Instead, we got oil dropping $5 per barrel and a 300-point move up in the Dow. 8/8/8 lucky? Maybe.

I think luck had nothing to do with all the good things happening on Wall Street last week. I have been waiting for weeks for something to happen and it did on Friday. The theme of this column has, on many occasions, centered around the expectations that the U.S. dollar was primed for a rally.

In fact, on June 4 and July 9, a dollar rally was the primary focus of this column. On many other occasions, the dollar was the supporting actor in the calls.