A funny thing happened this afternoon, but it won't be funny to the bulk of investors. Late this afternoon, the frustration and panic started setting in. You can blame a lot of it on many things, but the real fault may be the charts. The DJIA was off 165 points to 12,855.71 and the S&P 500 was off even worse, down 20.59 at 1,397.67.

The market sell-off was small early on but then reached certain sell levels that had been prior resistance levels on the way up. These numbers have been rounded for ease:
When the S&P 500 didn't hold right at 1,410.00, that added more pressure. Then, when 1,405.00 didn't hold, it added on another wave of sellers, and now 1,400 will act as a stead line of resistance, maybe beyond today. But it sure looks like we just lost the first cushion and moved out of that S&P up-trend after the 1,400 level was violated.

Was there news? Sure. Word came today that one of the suicide bombers in Iraq had been a Guantanamo POW; we also got word of an earthquake in Japan. But that darned dinosaur water, or black gold, just won't quit rising even when you get news that looks like it could fall. Today's higher oil inventories didn't do anything to stop the climb in oil prices and they rose $1.68 to $123.51 per barrel .

Many of these market whips come and go, but it sure looks like the pessimists and the bears just got the upper hand over the bulls today.

Think Secret, one of many ubiquitous Apple rumor sites online, has a strong exclusive story indicating that Apple will be including a spreadsheet application in its iWork package called Charts.

Apple used to have a full software suite, Appleworks, that included a spreadsheet application, presenter, and word processor. iWork has slowly been building up to that same feature set, but with a bit more panache. Each step of the way Apple has said it isn't trying to compete with Microsoft's offerings for the platform. They'd very much like to keep Office.

One hopes this is the case. To be honest, losing Office would be a big mistake. Apple needs the familiar for switchers. But sometimes Apple can't help itself, trying to do everything. According to Think Secret's article, sources say it imports Excel sheets and will rival Excel.

It'll be interesting to see how Redmond reacts.