Bear Market Blues

• Philly report creams stocks

• Factory funk!

• Our economy according to the latest Beige Book

• All this talk about recession is depressing

• Shoppers to constrain holiday spending

• Tough times in Las Vegas

• Buckle up - we haven't reached bottom yet!

• The collective view is that the recession will be mild by historic standards

• Survey shows more money managers believe global economy is in recession

• 5 interesting observations

• Buffett's best friend predicts 9% unemployment

• "I'm as sick of writing about financial problems as you are reading about them. But, as your mother probably said, just sit still and take the medicine. It's good for you." - John Crudele

• US hedge funds suffer heavy withdrawals

• Investors flee mutual funds for cash

• Panics and bubbles have a lot in common

• Everyone is scouring through old chart patterns for trading tells

• "If we see a breach on the S&P 500 of 912.75—Monday's low—that would be extremely disappointing. We'll start moving back into cash at that point." - Jerry Slusiewicz

• Aw, do we have to test the lows?

• "Friday was certainly a great opportunity, but you’ll get other opportunities. I’d rather be a little late to make sure a trend is good." - Mr. Thomas Nyheim

• Bulls, Bears, Donkeys & Elephants

• Republicans, Democrats, and Stock Returns

• Democrats plan stimulus package

• Government efforts to heal the credit markets are having unintended consequences

• Questions are arising about what will happen to all of that troubled mortgage-backed debt

• SEC eases ruling to lift banks

• AIG lobbies to relax oversight rules

• FDIC's Bair criticizes government's rescue plan

• Dimon on the government's bailout moves

• Wall Street is a small world. Take a look at Paulson's network

• Financial firms want to suspend or change the rules concerning asset markdowns. S&P Ratings tells why that's a bad idea

• Paulson lacks leverage to compel banks to put new cash to work

• Companies are turning to hedge funds to raise cash

• Pimco tapped to manage Fed's CPFF

• Wall Street skid prompts calls for interest-rate swap guarantee

• How the bailout auction should work

• The Feds' next step after saving the banks

• Funny, but true - how the government is trying to restore confidence to the system

• Why Main Street should care about Wall Street

• Another $9.5 billion down the drain!

• And $13 billion more!

• Maybe Uncle Sam will "rescue" Citadel

• 10 people who predicted the financial meltdown

• SmartMoney's Power 30

• Attention all gurus - if you ever make a forecast always be gloomy and vague

• "Investors are realizing that the economy is going down, and it may take some time to turn it around. The stock market trends clearly Bearish, it seems too early to initiate Bullish bets. Sometimes the best offense is a strong defense. Focus on capital preservation." - Robert W. Colby

• According to David Penn, swing traders should sit this out

• After last week, the bloggers turned very bullish!

• Corporate insiders are still bullish

• However, why are companies now taking a pass on buybacks?

• "Based on the outstanding float and yesterday's closing prices, that $700 billion could buy outright a total of 222 of the smallest firms in the S&P. Or, they could afford to buy a 10% stake in every single company in the index. Now that'd light a fire under the markets." - Jason Goepfert

• Mortgage rates spike - biggest jump since 1987!

• There's no quick fix for housing prices

• "Until home prices stabilize we expect higher losses in the home equity portfolio. If prices continue to fall, more of these loans will become worth almost as much as the underlying houses. That may increase the chances that homeowners will walk away from their properties and stop re-paying their loans." - CFO Howard Atkins, Wells Fargo

• Home prices seem far from bottom

• Peter Schiff tells Americans to stop paying their mortgage

• "If you played by the sensible financial rules all your life, saved money, invested most of it in mutual funds now find that the government has taxed you over a trillion dollars to bailout institutions of immense former wealth, whose top employees have prospered outrageously. Now you may end of giving more of it to neighbors who bought houses they couldn't afford and mortgage companies that were contemptibly greedy. You can also expect to be bailing out some lost cause state and local government or quasi-governmental agencies. Finally, after the markets have been successively devastated by each new round of bailouts your residual portfolio will be subject to the ravages of a bout of inflation that makes the 70s look tame. There will then be no bailout for you." - Jeff Norma

• Coldwell tries 10-day housing sale

• Very interesting - historical sector weights of the S&P 500

• The impact of the financial crisis on some of the most basic industries

• Are new sector leaders emerging?

• The hunt for green October

• Liquidity troubles & volatility bedevil currency markets

• European stocks fall on economy concern

• Switzerland to the rescue!

• Is China the dumb money or the smart money?

• Pakistan turns to China's deep reserves

• Brics to the rescue?

• Oil falls below $75 a barrel

• Healthcare investors fret over the election

• Can infrastructure projects ease the recession?

• "In my mind, any company involved with the production of the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane should carry a permanent buy rating." - Sam Patel

• Pop Quiz! Can you name any of the top five best performing stocks in the S&P 500 over the past three months?

• Screening for hedge fund liquidations

• Marty Whitman's value stocks

• Stock bargains the pros like now

• StockScouter's top investment ideas

• TheStreet.com's top 5 all-around picks

• Nothing but a sea of red on the scoreboard of gurus

• How to find conservative & prudent banks

• "Figure out what you are good at, stick to it and eliminate/minimize the other bets in your portfolio." - Cam Hui

• Thoughts about breaking trading slumps

• The Stock Bandit shares 4 trading goals

• How is an investor to know how long earnings growth can last? An easy way to gauge this is by calculating the company's sustainable growth rate

• Basic truths about portfolio management

• Kevin Matras on covered call writing

• Three things you need to know about options expiration

• Does the weather affect stock market volatility?

• How to track stocks in Google Spreadsheets

• Backtesting isn’t just about evaluation a trading system

• Want to keeping track of money flow? Here's the TrimTabs press release RSS feed

• "Limiting losses in tough times is perhaps the single most important requirement for achieving long-term capital growth." - William Nygren

• An new ETF with an infrastructure twist

• 5 questions for Ted Aronson

• For investors, the short-term horizon has gotten longer

• A decent question - Why are the biggest 2010 target-date funds down an average 22% this year, with just a few months to go before their investors theoretically retire?

• Mutual funds that defy market meltdown

• Quicken Online is finally free

• Smart financial moves for a down economy

• 78 ways for small business to save money in this economy

• Don't forget to donate your old computer hardware to those who can use it

• Very interesting! Glassbooth connects you to the 2008 presidential candidate that represents your beliefs the best

• Gordon Gekko is coming back!

• "Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men." - John F. Kennedy