Wall Street Won't Be Rattled

Catch Usama bin Laden, and watch the markets soar. Kill Usama bin Laden, and watch them really soar.

That is the prevailing market wisdom.

But in case you're hanging your bullish hat on a jailed bin Laden, I personally think you're giving the markets, and all investors, really, yourself included, way too little credit.

Stocks do move on short-term events. But they're more focused on long-term trends.

And for me long-term trends are not built on one-day news stories.

If that were the case, the October '87 stock market crash would have heralded a multi-year bear market. It did not. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

Or when Iraq first invaded Kuwait and the world thought oil prices would skyrocket and markets worldwide would tank. They did most assuredly, briefly, but they reversed themselves quickly.

My point is this: Don't believe that markets are defined by these events. I think they are more punctuated by them.

But longer term markets follow, some say telegraph, things we cannot grasp at the moment. Like interest rates which are tumbling, and tax rates, which are at least falling.

That's why I'm upbeat on Wall Street. Not so much because of the very real fear of not getting bin Laden now, but the longer term realization that we will and the in the end, it doesn't matter.

Things will improve — again not so much because of the economy that Usama tried to undermine, but because of us for refusing to let him do it.

That economy, my friends, is getting better.

That's why, despite market gyrations, we're up 1,700 points from our lows. And no person can change that. No matter how evil. No matter how obsessing. Because Usama, I hate to break it to you, but you don't rattle us on main street, and you sure as heck won't rattle us on Wall Street.

Book it. Get it. Mark it. Know it.

What do you think?  Send your comments to: cavuto@foxnews.com

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