Day two of the hope rally and U.S. and European stocks have jumped 5% to 7% in spite of the fact that no real and tangible solutions to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis have materialized. On Wall Street, they call that “buying the rumor.” It’s a wonderful concept, except it typically travels with its evil twin, “selling the news.” The message from the market this week is worry about that side of the trade when the time comes, but for now, hop on board the hope trade.

Late German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would have doused today’s speculative optimism in one statement: “Hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man’s torments.” One money manger with a similar view applied to this week’s action is Rob Stein, the senior managing director at Astor Asset Management in Chicago. “The risks to the downside far outweigh the risks to the upside,” he says.

Stein isn’t buying into this rally because he sees the U.S. spending the next six to 16 months in a modest, “garden variety recession,” and not a 2008-type recession or bear market. He predicts the S&P 500 and the world’s favorite precious metal (gold) are both headed back down toward 1,000. “Metals will find a home somewhere lower than here and will hang out for a decade,” Stein predicts.

As such, he thinks the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY) will be an outperformer, on the belief that cash-rich corporations “will be able ride this contraction out” and continue to make their dividend payments, which in turn, will support their stock prices. Similarly, he has a warm spot for the yield available from utilities (XLU) believing they are a good place to hide out. For more visit: Yahoo finance

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