Split Thursday as Oil Pumps Higher

There's just no turning the suckers away from the blue chips of the Dow it seems. While the other major indices were slightly lower, the Dow gained a little, just to keep hopes alive.

The major news came from the oil fields today, where crude for May delivery added 2.08 to end the day at $61.69. It seems that our beloved oil barons can't get enough of our greenbacks. Sooner or later, the price of oil and gasoline will cause a major implosion in the economy, unless, of course, it already has and nobody's admitting it yet.

Dow 12,461.14 +13.62; NASDAQ 2,451.74 -4.18; S & P 500 1,434.54 -0.50; NYSE Composite 9,313.82 -3.91

But whatever happens with the price of oil and the health of the economy still doesn't seem to be worth enough attention to slow down stocks. Naturally, interest rates staying in the same position they've been for nearly a year can spark a 150+ point rally.

Considering the folly of the people pushing stocks ever higher, one can only gawk at the valuations. Regardless of the relative health or malaise of the overall economy (it's OK, but not great), investors seem bent on buying no matter the cost. There's a problem there, in that folly is almost always followed by disaster, and that could just be looming with the spate of corporate earnings about to be announced.

We'll know more in about two weeks when corporations begin rolling out their 1st quarter results. There was a little taste of that today as Motorola warned investors that they would return results below estimates. Boo-hoo. More to come.