Pigs! Run! Run!

Intensely rainy weekend following Friday's clear warmth. Somewhere along the way last week, the Sienna's left rear tire found a nail, and tried to be one with it. The tire started a slow deflation, unable to keep the air I put into it. So this morning grease monkeys -- that is, automotive maintenance professionals -- removed the mail and then repaired the hole. I was practically first in line at the shop as it opened, the result of waking early for no special reason, but the kind of waking that you know isn't going to go away.

Remarkably, the tires are still under road-hazard warranty, which was no extra charge back when I bought them in late 2007. How often does that happen? The joke being that the tire would normally wait until just after the warranty expires to make trouble. I guess the tire couldn't wait that long to find its nail, so I escaped an auto repair shop without paying anything, which is as rare as rocking-horse dung.

As part of my daily scanning of Google News, I noticed today that the swine flu scare had the following consequence already, according to a roundup of stock news on Bloomberg: "Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest pork processor, tumbled 12 percent to $9.04. Tyson Foods Inc., the largest U.S.-based meat producer, retreated 8.9 percent to $9.96."

A fellow I know seriously believes -- or used to believe -- that on the whole, investors in the equity markets behave rationally. I don't particularly believe that. This could be an example to buttress my case. Selling off pork-processing shares because swine flu, which presumably has been in pigs for a long time, has jumped to people? Sure, I can see that. Actually, what I see are brokers yelling, "They handle pigs? Sell! Sell!"

Orders aren't traded like that, but the mental picture is fun all the same.