Feel the Itch? Verizon May Have Caught Telco Fleas

Remember how nice and sweet the market used to be? Buy a stock, watch it ramp up, get paid, be happy. It was like a new romance -- without the getting-paid part, of course -- when you spend hours cuddling on the couch watching TV and nothing seems like it can bother you.

Well, if telecom stocks were lovers, they'd be sleeping in the garage about now, with little chance of earning their way back into the comforts of home. This week, the options market showed that telecom stocks were still decisively in the doghouse, no matter how many pundits said we were turning yet another corner.

As a brief aside, in a Manhattan restaurant Wednesday, I spotted the CNBC screen, on which someone was asking if a turnaround was near. I turned to my buddy, a bond trader, and said, "Whaddya think?" ...