Sometimes we have a strong bias concerning which way a stock or commodity will move. Let's take gold and silver. Let's assume that you believe the turmoil in the Middle East, especially in Libya and Syria, is bullish for gold. Let's also assume that the weaker U.S. dollar is good for gold.

You hold on for the past two weeks with the Mideast getting worse, and with the dollar getting weaker, and nothing happens. Gold just meanders. You start to wonder if you've done the right thing buying gold.

Portugal Prime Minister Jose Socrates stood by his promise and resigned late Wednesday, leaving the country with a higher possibility of a bailout. Socrates had hoped to push through structural reforms in the country in order to cut down borrowing costs and decrease its fiscal deficit.

The prime manager's resignation was just another undesirable event for Portugal, as Moody's downgraded the country's sovereign debt rating last week and gave Portugal a negative outlook. Although nothing is certain, the outlook suggests that further ratings cuts may ensue.

The beleaguered U.S. dollar, which has weakened about 50% versus the euro and about 11% versus the British pound since 2002, is down but hardly out.

The dollar has rallied in the past two months versus the euro (up 8%) and pound (up about 4%), on renewed concern about sovereign debt in Europe. This time, the concern is about Portugal's debt, and the impact continued credit market woes would have on both euro-zone and United Kingdom GDP growth.

On Tuesday, Portugal's Prime Minister Jose Socrates said his country will not need a bail-out, and its budget deficit will be lower than forecast, Bloomberg News reported. He said rumors that the country needs aid are helping "speculators" while hurting Portugal and driving down the euro.

So you thought the sovereign debt crisis in Europe was over? Wrong. For the past two months we've had a temporary respite. The euro rose and we got a nice warm and fuzzy feeling. But now the problem is back.

According to Bloomberg Markets Magazine's October issue, even though Europe did stress tests on their banks, there is still concern that one or more countries could default. Banks hold sovereign debt bonds from many different countries. That is putting pressure on all eurozone banks.

A default by Greece could trigger the collapse of banks with large holdings of Greek debt. Europe's largest banks hold €134 billion in Greek, Portuguese and Spanish government bonds.

Moody's Investors Service cut Portugal's sovereign debt rating. In a statement from the agency, Anthony Thomas said: "The Portuguese government's debt to gross domestic product and debt to revenues ratios have risen rapidly over the past two years."

Moody's also questioned whether Portugal's economic reforms will be sufficient to reverse the deterioration in the country's debt metrics, especially in light of recent labor reforms.

Portugal initiated a program to cut its budget deficit from 9.4% of GDP to 8.3% of GDP this year and to 2.8% of GDP in 2013. Moody's expects the Portuguese economy to be flat to plus 0.5% and to rise to 1.5% in 2011.

In an unexpected move, German chancellor, Angela Merkel, called for the "orderly insolvencies" of member states.

Germany says it wants to get tough on European Union members to prevent another Greek crisis. Germany has been against helping Greece, and only under pressure from the EU and the IMF did it agree to participate in the bailout.

Now, the Germans want to let member states default to avoid any repeat of the Greek crisis. What they fail to realize is that defaults are often messy and not orderly. What could happen is that confidence in the eurozone would disappear as would the euro.

A day after signaling rigorous scrutiny of Greece's austerity plan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel did an about-face, of sorts, Wednesday, vowing a quicker approval of aid to the deficit-plague euro-zone country. Not before, however, the chancellor's earlier remarks rattled bond, currency and stock markets around the globe.

Standing beside International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Merkel said, "It's completely clear that the negotiations between the Greek government, the European Commission and the IMF need to be sped up now," Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.

Despite market sentiment that suggests a Greek debt default is ahead, it won't occur if Europe remains on the path it laid out Friday when the Mediterranean nation asked for implementation the European Union's bail-out package. And that path includes tangible evidence by Greece, forwarded to German officials, that it's implementing the first phase of austerity measures.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said "first I want to see the program," before Germany releases any funds to debt-plagued Greece, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday. Merkel's Christian Democratic party faces state-level elections in May at a time when most German citizens are opposed to the bailout.

It's a wild and woolly world out there, especially in Europe. Today Fitch downgraded Portugal's debt. The Greek crisis shows no signs of solution. Germany is playing hardball, refusing to help Greece refinance its upcoming debt. The eurozone is in a state of disarray.

As a consequence, the euro is falling out of bed and the dollar is screaming higher. Gold, which trades opposite the dollar, tumbled to a five month low. with April futures closing at $1,086.20 down $14.90 The June euro futures are trading at $1.3348 down .01410 (2:45 EDT) and the June dollar futures are trading at 82.040 up .922.

Blame a poor US Treasury auction, blame poor home sales data, or blame Portugal after a Fitch downgrade. Regardless, the markets needed a breather and may need even more of a breather ahead. Depending upon which stock indexes you track, we had been in a constant gain environment with the market up 10 of the past 11 days.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,836.15 -52.68 (-0.48%)
S&P 500 1,167.72 -6.45 (-0.55%)
Nasdaq 2,398.76 -16.48 (-0.68%)

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They may say they can't stand the "ugly Americans," but there's only one place where rich Europeans will put their money.

According to alternative investment research firm Preqin, 29% of all European hedge fund investors prefer to invest in funds based in the U.S., where the managers are often able to highlight solid track records and experience, not to mention more innovative funds. The average European hedge fund investor has capital in three U.S. funds.

During a crisis, never mind what the media or government officials are saying, follow the money.

The Mercantile Exchange (CME) posts open contracts for each currency traded -- both long and short positions. By subtracting them you can get a sense of whether traders are net long or short. In the case of the euro, traders are net short 40,000 contracts or nearly $8 billion.

Meanwhile, officials of struggling countries, Greece, Spain and Portugal are telling the media that they have things under control. Elena Salgado, Spanish finance minister and Jose Manuel Campo, her deputy flew to London to meet with bondholders, the Financial Times reports. They want to reassure promises to cut Spain's budget deficit by 3% of GDP by 2013. But then the treasury wants to raise 116.7 billion euros.

It sometimes is a small, unpredicted event that moves markets. Today it was Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank. He unexpectedly left a meeting in Australia to attend special meeting of European leaders to address the region's economy.

That was the trigger that shot off a turnaround in world markets. Stocks and commodities are trading higher in anticipation that the Greek sovereign debt problem will be dealt with. The U.S. market, just opened, did it with a bang as the Dow industrials more than recovered its triple digit loss from Monday to be back above the 10,000 mark.

Looking back just a few weeks, the markets ushered in the new year with euphoria. Within a few short weeks, things have turned sour. The Dow dropped below the 10,000 mark last week. S&P 500 is down 7.3% from its 15-month closing peak.

Now the question facing investors and traders is whether the market is in a corrective phase. Eric Kuby of NorthStar Investment Management Group thinks so. "I'm in the camp that believes that we are in a correction," he said.

On Thursday, markets across Europe, Asia and the U.S. sold off sharply. The reason is concern over Greece, Spain and Portugal being unable to manage their sovereign debts. The problem did not vanish overnight. The spread between the Greek and German 10-year government debt expanded since Thursday. Investors and traders sold the euro and bought dollars. Again on Friday, even with the Swiss Central Bank selling its own currency, the euro is still under pressure.

The dollar is strong again Friday, with the U.S. dollar index trading at 80.39, up .315 (8:30 EDT). In contrast, the euro has fallen 1.1% so far this week. This is the fourth consecutive week of losses.