Wild market day starts off shaky and ends up decent

The last few trading sessions have been getting more than the once-over as many investors keep expecting a significant pullback in stocks after weeks of near-steady gains. On Wednesday, the Dow fell 216 points and this morning the blue chip index lost another 100 points. Then, with about an hour left, the market started climbing back and finished the day with an 80-point gain, to 15,040. That's still down a few hundred points from where the Dow was trading late last month, but the year-to-date gain is a more than healthy 15 percent. A couple of points to keep in mind: The May job numbers that come out Friday morning will be getting special scrutiny because of concerns about a possible softening of the economy and because of how they might influence the Federal Reserve's ongoing bond-buying program (what some say is the main reason for stock gains). This is one of those times where the report might be interpreted in any number of ways, including bad news (smaller-than-expected number of new jobs) being viewed as good news (the Fed being less inclined to pull back). The other more basic point is that sooner or later stocks will drop off significantly. Fed or no Fed, they don't go up forever. Of course, when and to what degree that happens is anyone's guess - even though everyone on Wall Street seems to have an opinion. Just be careful out there.