Few may have seen Thursday's wild trading day coming, but the volatility comes with the territory. The market in general has been rallying for more than a year, and it's difficult to ignore Greece's debt crisis, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the thankfully botched Times Square terrorist attack, and the fact that the economy isn't entirely back.

The recession may be toast, but the recovery has yet to work its way through most sectors. Sure, auto sales rocked last month, led by Ford's (NYSE: F) huge 25% year-over-year increase. However, did you check out April's retail sales? Things weren't exactly hopping at the suburban megamall. Aeropostale (NYSE: ARO) and Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) -- two trendy mall chains that should be rocking, now that there's disposable income to spring for new "going out" apparel -- posted negative same-store sales of 5% and 7%, respectively.

There is even divergence within particular industries. Let's take the travel sector. Airfares are up, but hotel rates haven't bounced back, because the demand isn't there to fill rooms at pre-recession prices.

So, sure, Thursday was an ugly day for the market. But it's not as if the fundamentals had been truly living up to the past 14 months of gains.

Briefly in the news
And now let's take a quick look at some of the other stories that shaped our week.

  • Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) delivered a quarterly profit of $0.01 a share. Yes, the same satellite radio operator that was on the brink a year ago has turned its fortunes around to become a profitable media giant.
  • If it's not broken, why fix it? Well, tell that to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). The world's leading search engine changed the layout of its query results page. It is now offering a few more options to massage and filter search requests. The change is not all that obtrusive, and obviously, Big G wouldn't break out something new if it didn't feel it would improve either the user experience or its ability to earn money.

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz