Everyone in the world of finance who was paying attention should have read the writing on the wall: The Fed was planning to cut rates by one-quarter of a point. Indeed, a poll of economist by Bloomberg, I think, showed that better than 8 out of 10 were expecting a cut of that size. But Wall Street wanted more. When it didn’t get it, we had today’s plunge in the markets. As I wrote the other day, the 25 basis poi Everyone in the world of finance who was paying attention should have read the writing on the wall: The Fed was planning to cut rates by one-quarter of a point. Indeed, a poll of economist by Bloomberg, I think, showed that better than 8 out of 10 were expecting a cut of that size. But Wall Street wanted more. When it didn’t get it, we had today’s plunge in the markets. As I wrote the other day, the 25 basis points cut was pretty much priced into stocks, and had pushed share prices up for the last 10 days or so. The Street really wanted a cut of 50 basis points, a half-percent, that is. Tech stocks, which had gained about 180 points since late November, shed 57 points, or about 2%, in a few hours. With the exception of VMware, which for some reason gained 2.5%, all of the major players were down. It’s fairly obvious that speculating on what the Fed will or won’t do is very dangerous for the rank-and-file investor. Keep looking at quality. Later in the week, I’m going to present some ideas for tech investments that make sense during a downturn. I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Reach me at bill.sndyer@sbcglobal.net Technology Industry