Despite a highly eventful week in the news, not much has changed from a stock market perspective. No doubt, investors have grown immune to the daily reports of geopolitical turmoil, including Ukraine vs. Russia for control of the eastern regions, Japan’s dispute with China over territorial waters, Sunni vs. Shiite for control of Iraq, Christians being driven out by Islamists, and other religious conflicts in places like Nigeria and Central African Republic.

Earnings reports on Wednesday from big banks like Goldman Sachs (GS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) were encouraging. And Apple (AAPL) got a much-needed boost from the top tech analysts. However, Goldman’s analysts tried to throw a wet blanket on the markets earlier this week with their expectation that earnings reports overall this year would be “uninspiring” and that equity returns this year likely will be only in the single digits.

Congress got its act together just enough to stave off the fiscal cliff. Unfortunately, they merely added a long “pirate plank” to the edge of the cliff, as spending was not addressed. So the country has stepped off the cliff and now we are “walking the plank,” albeit without the blindfold since we know when the debt ceiling and sequestration are scheduled to kick in.

U.S. stocks rallied on Election Day Tuesday, ostensibly in anticipation of a “surprise” Romney win. But on Wednesday, after huge dollars were spent on rancorous campaigns and attack ads that only further deepened the divide in our country, we woke up to find ourselves with the same President and divided Congress that previously failed to address the looming Fiscal Cliff.