Your humble editor is skeptical that this latest financial rally will turn out to be anything of substance… except another shorting opportunity when the time is right.

Bottom line: The current rout in financial sector shares might smell awful to the simple onlooker. But smart investors should know that it smells like the beginning of the end of their collapse, too.

Another big CEO is forced out during the housing crunch and lowered earnings. Wachovia chief executive Ken Thompson was pushed out Monday as head of the nation's fourth-largest bank, following Stanley O'Neal at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Charles Prince at Citigroup Inc.