Personally I think the DOW has as much to do with Obama being elected as oil did with peak oil this past summer.

In a long term sense both are related to their counterpart. Peak oil will drive the price of oil up and up, until other sources of energy become dominate or the economic system that is reliant on oil breaks down. But in the short run, there is plenty of oil available to meet December 2008’s demand levels, and demand is falling, so the price of oil is also falling.

The markets generally dont like uncertainty and they dont like regulation/taxes. Obama is currently bringing both as no one really knows the details of his future policies, and they are pretty sure there will be more regulation and taxes. (This may not end up to be a bad thing, who knows? Perhaps the hype is justified) But the current distruptions in the market place are much more related to the fact that there isnt enough liquidity in the market place and consumption is falling leading to job layoffs, which lower consumption, which lead to more companies going under wipeing out stock equity, which leads to more job losses……… etc etc

THe Dow is reacting to short term information, and as much as the Media and all of us like to relate everything to Obama, he is still long term news.