Investors opine that the wide disparity between the Dow Jones Industrial Average and technicals would be painting a worrying message in a normal market environment. But these are not normal times, to relate the obvious. That’s because the innumerable amount of headline risk-market moves driven by the constant turn of big news events-is at a zenith and rendering the aforementioned cornerstone of Dow Theory extremely unreliable, if not useless. Some economists blame the game on Greece, as the seemingly daily twists and turns to the European debt saga as essentially the only market movers nowadays.

The Dow Theory has six basic tenets at its core- the market cycles and trends, volume, discounting of news, and trend confirmation-but perhaps the most widely followed is that any market rally has to be confirmed by the transportation sector. By that calculation, the third quarter was an abysmal sign for those hoping the markets would move higher. Transportation stocks are key because they represent active economic activity on America’s air and ground freight systems. Transports are an important part of the market and the economy and with the poor relative action in the sector signaled a bearish indicator on the whole economy.

Yet there are reasons to believe while the transport activity is an important economic indicator, it may not matter to the markets after all. Investors, according to the popular adage, run on fear and greed, and fear that debt default in Greece would lead to global chain-effect is the markets driving force. Even amidst an excess of bad news from the US economy last week, stocks rallied on the assumption that Europe was moving closer to solving the Greek dilemma and removing the risk of another crisis in the making.

Another critical tenet is that the Dow already has priced in the news by the time it hits the stands. The current market fluctuations of 500 points a session indicate that there is plenty left to surprise investors in the current theatrical drama being played out in Southern Europe. The major part of the theory was the charts already had the news in them which is not seen anymore. For investors, that sets up a challenge.

The long-term trend may be the bright spot for the Dow theorists. Reason being that once the Greek crisis goes away, traditional indicators can be useful again. Until that day arrives though, investors will have to adjust their perspectives accordingly.