Meisler: Still Expecting a Year-End Rally

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I've noticed there is a theme to the questions being asked on CNBC lately. You might recall we went from Maria Bartiromo constantly asking guests what they would buy to finally at the November lows asking what they would sell. Now I see every guest, or practically every guest, is asked when he expects the recession to conclude.

It would seem to me that before guests are asked about the conclusion of the recession they should first be asked if they ever saw the recession coming. Because if they never saw it coming, then why would we care when they think it will be over? And if they never saw it coming it likely means those guests are permabulls and in this market we have learned "perma" anything is not a good thing to be!

Meanwhile, I also have noticed a pattern in the market for the past week. It's been so long since we've seen this pattern that I hadn't realized it: we're back to every other day. Since last Monday we have been up, down, up, down, up and down again Monday. I suppose if the pattern continues, Tuesday could be an up day.

Of course, on Tuesday we have Goldman Sachs' (GS Quote) earnings, or lack thereof, to be announced, as well as the Federal Reserve decision on interest rates in the afternoon. One could easily cancel out the other.