A Potential Pothole on Rally Road

The stock market rallied big Thursday and was soaring again midday Friday. A continuation of the technical factors that contributed to Thursday's gains, along with a Lehman Brothers upgrade of IBM (IBM Quote) and relief that General Electric's (GE Quote) results weren't worse were fueling big gains for major averages Friday afternoon.

Everything may suddenly appear "okey-dokey" but a large number of market participants remain worried about the potential for some upheaval in the financial system.

"I will venture there is an outside chance that in the very near future, during a momentous market upheaval, a major financial participant will face complete and instant annihilation," Fari Hamzei of Hamzei Analytics in Los Angeles commented recently. ...