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From the middle of last week the prospect of a full-fledged blowup at today's Spain debt auction has hung around like a nosy parent does on their child's FaceBook and Twitter pages. Corporate revenue and earnings beats be-gone, for a Spanish debt auction could confirm what we already know: a country with a eurozone high 23% unemployment rate will be fiscally troubled for a while to come. Of course, we don't know what the repercussions will be if Spain does require a bailout from its financially healthier neighbors; hence, the touch-and-go nature of the market. Characterizing trading as touch and go simply means that quality starts to the year, broadly speaking, are not being enshrined in valuations as they should. The mindset is this: Why downshift a risk-free rate assumption if a business garnering 30% of its annual revenues from Europe, but has commenced on the right foot this year, if a Spain debt auction goes bust and triggers domino effects? (I hate adding all these theatrics for you, but it's how the collective masses think.) Or, that is the very boring mental mechanics behind how my industry colleagues go about their business.

With that in mind, I think we are able to agree that when an event in the stock market is over hyped it will usually not live up to its billing, and some other event often swoops in from left field and steals the spotlight. Such a viewpoint could be applied to Apple's (AAPL) supposedly bleaker profit margin outlook from a device that is not on the market (and may never be); the event that could fly onto the radar screen is another mega earnings report from Apple that lends credence to Goldman Sachs' (GS) pre-earnings bullishness. However, that is a debate reserved for a different forum, for the timing being the surprise event of the day could be jobless claims....764 more words left in this article. To read them, just click below and try Real Money FREE for 14 days.