Bailouts & More Stimulus

Good morning. We are set to start Thanksgiving week on a positive note as Citigroup gets bailed out by the government and President-elect Obama introduces his economic team headlined by Tim Geithner at Treasury, Larry Summers as economist-in-chief and Peter Orszag as White House budgets director, and so on.

We also have some more news regarding TARP. Paulson is now considering using the rest of the money to stem foreclosures and to make it easier for households to borrow money while expectations grow for a huge stimulus package to be signed the first day of Obama's presidency. To put all of this in perspective, one estimate suggests that the money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

Premarket gainers: C, OMRI, CE, FRE, F, LVS, MER, MS, BAC, JPM, FNM, GS, WFC, GM, BAC, CETV, PAAS, AAUK, SOLF, TASR, NXY, XTXI, CLNE, MT, AUY, FCX, BHP, FWLT, & NVDA.

Premarket losers: LFG, CACB, TEVA, CYBS, AVAV, TSN, GTE, STEM, NDAQ, PKX, HTX, VRSN, TSM, REP, CHL, & WYNN.

At 10:AM we have a report on existing home sales but the main focus today will be Obama's economic team and any news regarding further stimulus. Technically, it would be a victory just to see the market repair some of the damage we've seen over the past two weeks, perhaps moving back up to the 920 level in the S&P. Oversold conditions into this week should help, though volume will start to decline around mid-week due to the holiday and I expect continued choppy conditions overall.

Along with trading for charity this week, I'll be working on another mailbag post for today which I'll likely have after the closing bell. Let's make it a great week!