I consider this issue this morning because of the way it behaved yesterday. First it was elated by Warren Buffett’s offer to back up bond insurers. I was there with the most gaga of the bunch. Later on, as the NY Times reports, the market got queasy about the fact that getting bailed out of their mess might cost the bond insurance guys a premium, and that Mr. Buffett would benefit by taking that premium, and that wow, this wasn’t the modern equivalent of Mother Theresa helping the poor of Bombay, it was just Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) making the most of a bad situation, which is what they do. And down the market went.

This got me to thinking, and from thinking to musing, and from musing to dreaming, and when I woke up a few minutes ago that question was sauntering around in my head: If the stock market was a person, what kind of person would it be?

Here’s my view. If the stock market was a person, it would be:

• Rich: There’s a lot of money in the stock market. Having all that money doesn’t really make it any happier, though.
• Nervous: In fact, being so wealthy and privileged makes it incredibly anxious. If peace of mind rests in the feeling that one has nothing to lose, the Market is the exact opposite. It has everything to lose, first and foremost in its anxious, monkey mind.
• Greedy: Over-riding that anxiety is a fine patina of opportunism and atavistic desire to get more, have more, to profit while others are screaming down into the ocean of defeat. When the greed overcomes the nervousness, the Market is happy and flies very high;
• Gutless: On the other hand, even the specter of a shadow of a doubt that things could go the other way and the Market starts heading for the exit. In a disaster, this is not the person you want in the lifeboat with you. If it doesn’t push you overboard, it will try to eat your leg;
• Intelligent: Nobody is saying the Market is stupid. It’s not. It’s just like a lot of my friends — too crazy to be smart a lot of the time;
• Irrational: I don’t care how many PowerPoint presentations investment bankers, lawyers and security analysts offer to me at boondoggles past, present and future, nobody will ever convince me that the Market is rational. Buffett to the rescue! Hurrah! Let’s go up! Oooh. Wait. Buffett’s motives are impure. Ouch. Let’s go down. Sure, apologists for the Market will come up with a million reasons it does things. So do we all.
• Ungrateful: All it cares about is what you’ve done for it lately. A lot of the time, in fact, when you DO give it something it’s been looking for, it doesn’t even say thanks because it claims it has already “baked that in.” It’s like giving somebody a present and finding out that, since they expected it, they’re not particularly excited about it.
• Moody: Sometimes you just don’t know what it’s thinking and it won’t tell you;
• An obnoxious drunk: And likely to give you really bad advice when it’s in its cups;
• Boring when sober: Ever sit next to it at dinner?
• Vicious when disappointed: Google (GOOG) reports terrific performance. The Market expected, however, ultra-super-googlicious performance. Whoops. Down goes Google stock.
• Never happy for very long: Witness yesterday’s performance. For reasons explaining this characteristic, repair to the top of the list and reread “Nervous” and “Greedy.”

That’s about it for me. I guess some of you have learned to be friends with this entity, and to work with it to make a lot of money for yourselves, and I applaud that. For the rest of us, the only question is, I guess…

Why in the world are we hanging around with this person?