By all rights, the markets should have tanked today; a lot of problems cropped up that would have sent the Dow and Nasdaq into a spiral under other circumstances.  So take it as a sign of resilience, if you will, that they only lost 0.64 and 0.88 percent, respectively.

Let’s get into the list of all the little issues.  First, there’s the global concern over swine flu.  Some people are pointing out that the death rate isn’t awful compared to the normal strain, but swine flu is spreading, and other folks and organizations are getting quite worked up about it.

Then there’s the fact that a few airplanes decided to swing by buildings in New York today.  As it turned out, the flights were for a planned photo op, but extremely few people on the ground were aware of this beforehand, and something of a panic occurred.

Finally, GM announced that it will kill off the Pontiac brand and eliminate about 21,000 hourly jobs.  And it still couldn’t promise that it’ll be able to avoid bankruptcy, even in the near future.

Again, then, it’s pretty impressive - and encouraging - that we didn’t see a market crash take place today.