I found this headline amusing:

U.S. stocks soar as oil slumps to 5-week low

Why, oh, why, I wondered, would oil prices slump so quickly today?

Surely, they weren't being kept artificially high for any reason, right?

That was my first thought. Here's the reason given in the story:

Crude-oil futures closed under $49 a barrel in New York for the first time in five weeks, pressured by the big increase in last week's U.S. crude supplies.

Why our supplies are increasing, I have no idea. This was also strange:

The conflicting reports on Yasser Arafat's condition contributed to the decline.

Crude for December delivery ended down $2.06, or 4.1 percent, at $48.82 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Late morning stocks got a brief lift on reports suggesting Arafat had died in France, bolstering hopes among some investors that a new leader could broker a peace agreement with Israel.

"The market would probably interpret his passing as increasing the chance of peace in the Middle East," said Mark Bryan, senior vice-president at Brean Murray.

Odd, isn't it, that Arafat would die in bed in France. How much better for his cause to be riddled with Israeli bullets? Or to pull the plug on a dynamite vest near a synagogue? But, I guess, that's for the little people.

Back to my main point: since Bush's re-election, oil has fallen to under $50 a barrel, and the Nasdaq is back over 2000 (the Dow was already over 10,000). It will be interesting to see how long that lasts.