If you were half-listening to the president speaking this morning, you might have gotten the impression that he was telling Americans the financial markets had hit bottom and it was time to invest in the stocks again.

"What you're now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it," Obama said. "I think that consumer confidence ... as they see the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act taking root, businesses are starting to see opportunities for investment and potential hiring, we are going to start creating jobs again."

But not so fast. That was the second part of the president's answer on why stock prices shouldn't matter.

During a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a reporter had asked about Obama's economic policies and the plummeting markets, which closed at 12-year lows on Monday.

The first part of Obama's answer was this: "What I'm looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market, but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing. And, you know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day to day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong."

Later in the day, the president's chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said his boss wasn't cheerleading for the stock market. Rather, Gibbs said, Obama was reassuring Americans that the economy would recover, as he has done many times before.

"I don't think ... what he did today was markedly different than what he's done in the past," Gibbs said.

"The president has on many occasions talked about the fact that brighter days for our economy are ahead, if we take important steps and make important decisions now about addressing many of the problems and challenges that we face."

The White House press secretary also made it clear that the president was not doling out stock tips.

"It’s not his job to comment on or react to what the market does up and down on any given day, but instead to look at the longer term, at the longer horizon at what can be done in this country to meet those challenges," Gibbs said.