Ugh!  What a day, and I’m glad it’s over.  Ok, I’m actually happy the whole bleeping week is over.  I admit I’m tired.  We’ve known the news in financials and for the economy has been bad and getting worse.  That doesn’t always mean the stock market will immediately reflect it.  So as it goes through it’s discovery process, the jubilation turns to panic then back to jubilation, and so on.  Results:  wild swings.  Difficult, but not impossible to trade (can be pretty tiring though!).  Rumor has it that Citigroup is selling itself to foreign interests.  That’s not entirely true, although foreign money is most likely going to be in their coffers soon.  They are saying there will be layoffs, but they’re hoping to avoid massive cuts.  I remember what it felt like to see all those Enron employees leaving the building after they were fired.  It’s really sad.  I don’t think these big financial institutions are going to be able to survive without massive layoffs, but we’ll see.

The indices started weak and stayed that way all through the close.  Selling pressure was high all day.  Gold and Agriculture held their ground.  The Bank of America and Countrywide news just didn’t excite anybody, and it shouldn’t.  These are last ditch efforts, people, not something to celebrate as a fix to the financial system.  Certainly not an answer to the economic problems we face.  The way the market reacted, you’d have thought Bank of America had just bailed out the entire housing industry.  Rumors that JP Morgan is looking to take a stake in Washington Mutual is interesting.  Weird, but interesting.  We will be watching for further developments on that story.  Even though the market players seem to think a 50bp cut from the Fed is a done deal, they are acting as though they want it right now!  I’m getting kind of tired of hearing all the yelling for an emergency cut.  If the Fed cuts, inflation worsens and we all pay for this mess in higher commodity prices.  They don’t cut, the economy falls a little harder than they want to see.  Hmm…and it’s an election year.  What will they do?  We all just have to wait and see.  We can guess, and we will weigh the pros and cons, but we do not know what they’ll do.  But, whatever happens, we’ll stay on top of things and continue to trade and make money.  We’ll win many and lose a few.