The cover of today's New York Daily News loudly proclaimed the joy and wonder, the shock and awe of yesterday's Wall Street rally. Right beside the headline, in the middle of a huge red arrow marked "Dow soars to biggest point gain in history," the paper presented a picture of a trader, both thumbs up, sporting a cocky, devil-may-care smile. Inside, the paper carried another shot of its leering cover boy, this time accompanied by another trader sporting a mindless grin.

It was hardly necessary to read the accompanying article, as the pictures told the whole tale: the stock market, after plummeting for a few days, more or less hit bottom. Other countries started pouring money into their banks, calming the panic, and enabling investors to remember that the paper they were passing back and forth sometimes represented actual value. When this happened, the investors proceeded to start buying some of their stock back at ever-increasing rates, causing the Dow Jones index to rapidly rise. Of course, the next few acts in this play are equally obvious: the market will continue to fluctuate as irrational exuberance and irrational caution trade places and seek equilibrium in the Wall Street version of manic depression.

For some people, the wild fluctuations of the market will translate into equally wild emotional rides. In the United States, the land where Calvinism never died, wealth is still considered a sign of rectitude and poverty a mark of weakness. It naturally follows, then, that the relative ebb and flow of our economic fortunes will translate into a similar roller coaster of pride and self-doubt. One need look no further than the cover of the Daily News to see a man who takes responsibility for the strength of the market and, presumably, blames himself for its failings. As stock market players continue to confuse knowledge of the market with the ability to control it, their sense of self will rise and fall with its fluctuations.