Major News does play a role in moving the markets short term. If you went short U.S. Bonds and Long EUR right after Bernankes appointment announcement you made some decent change.
end of month pump --- institutions could not let a friday, as were pushing the gap closed, turn into a bottom breaker. they pump to hold the market and try to get us into next week to try and get some upward momentum started. end of month was starting to look real ugly for the funds --- they needed all the help they could get so it was time to commit some liquidity to clean up the mess. they have that tough spx 1201 level still above them to try and work on monday, if we do not get any tankage type news over the weekend. we had a very strong "buy program" pump right as the es was busting 1194.50 with good es buying follow through --- that was a good clean breakout. another note ---- look at how the russell did not join in the fun --- commercial players were in other products pumping.