Today is a perfect example of why I do not recommend that long term investors, regardless of how afraid they are right now, sell their stocks into oversold equity markets to minimize short term pain. When sentiment is so negative, the mere nomination of a new Treasury Secretary can result in a 500 point Dow rally within hours.

All of this announcement did was lift some uncertainty from the market, but traders hate uncertainty. Does it matter that Geithner was one of the two or three people most talked about for this job? Not at all. All that matters is that now we know who it will be.

Now, does this mean we won't be down 500 points on Monday? Of course not. The point is, when markets are down so much and have priced in so much negative information, it does not take much to get a massive rally. Imagine what would happen if economic data begins to improve sometime next year?

Unless you are psychic it is very difficult to get out of the market and get back in time to catch most of the rebound. With electronic trading and instant dissemination of information these days, the market can move a couple thousand points in a matter of days (which nowadays is a 20-30% move). The odds are against you being able to get back in fast enough, which is why I don't even try.