What about choice number 3? I don't think we should leave out the possibility that many new readers realize that it's time to sell their losers before the end of the tax year and move the remaining fraction of those unfortunate investments into something that will at least double or triple in the first few weeks of 2013 and bring their portfolios back to something to which they can be proud.  If enough people make this wise portfolio adjustment then we might just trickle higher regardless of news!