It really wasn't a surprise when Wall Street didn't have a big rally after the Paulson plan passed the House earlier today. Wall Street had moved on to the next trading opportunity.
In one of the best-ever Washington-related examples of the common Wall Street saying of "Buy on the rumor, sell on the fact," by the time the legislation was passed, traders had pretty much assumed that it would be approved and were focussing on other issues. Many of the people who had been the bill's most ardent supporters the past two weeks started to talk about what else would be needed, how this bill only dealt with part of the problem, other economic issues.
Traders had traded early in the day on the possibility that the bill would be adopted. When the possibility was high earlier in the day, the Dow was up. Once the possibility was over, that is, when the bill actually was adopted, the Dow moved down and closed lower.

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