Before I get to the market forecast for the week, just a quick reminder that this IS a bear market rally, and once it ends: "Too-big-to-fail" banks like Bank of America andCitigroup, and corporations like Chrysler and General Motors, WILL ultimately be allowed to fail; …

Google's earnings report after the close of trading showed that while they beat the estimates pretty handily, growth is clearly showing due to a decrease in ad sales. Initially the stock traded over $20 higher to $400 + before ending at $388, up $9 on the day. any of the key financials closed lower, reversing earlier gains. Goldman, Wells Fargo,

Meridith Whitney, another of the top ranked bank analysts, and one that has been dead right on the insolvency issues surrounding the industry over the last couple of years, came on CNBC to say that the first quarter earnings results should not be as bad as some have feared.

MARK TO MARKET ACCOUNTING CHANGES Could the wheels be coming off of the bear market rally already? It’s certainly possible, but I think it’s more likely that either late Monday…or certainly sometime on Tuesday we will begin to see the markets head higher again. Here’s why:

Assuming that the market doesn’t fall apart today (down 120 points now but I think it may even close positive), today will mark the single best week we’ve had in the market since late December and for the first time in a long time I’m seeing some constructive market internals (new highs/lows,

While I expect the bear market rally to continue for a short while longer there is no evidence that I can find whatsoever that we have reached a final bottom in this once of a lifetime collapse in equities and the economy. Here’s what you have to remember about bear market rallies; they happen incredibly quickly…

As I wrote yesterday morning for VRA subscribers, a bear market rally is upon us and it’s obvious even to the most newbie of investors that this one was highly coordinated at both the government and corporate levels. Yes folks, the fix was in for a stock market rally, which tells you that they are very concerned….beyond that, frightened,

One by one, U.S. and global leaders are lining up to talk up their respective schemes to end this once in a lifetime economic collapse. Collectively they are putting on a unified road show to ensure us pawns that the trillions upon trillions being spent on massive, never-before-seen global bailouts will in fact work,

Unfortunately, this is all that’s holding our fragile economy and financial system together as we enter this most important week of trading. The band aids are the fiscal stimulus programs and government (see taxpayer) funded bailouts of the banking and financial industries.

Day after day we hear from one elected/appointed official after another, each telling us that things are under control because they have a “plan”. Mostly it sounds to me like they have a “plan for a plan”, and that in fact, they have little to no experience in actually running a business,

Following my update, I have included an article from one of the foremost economic analysts of our time, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. He called the subprime crisis just 6 months before it hit, and this weekend came out with extraordinary comments about the banking …

This will be a quick but important update. The Obama administration, along with our new Treasury Secretary, will be announcing their financial bailout and fiscal stimulus program early next week…likely on Monday or Tuesday. In light of this, look for the market to trade higher in the short term.

No one, and I mean no one, likes Obama’s stimulus package. When you see Democrats struggle to support these socialistic ideals, you know that they are a bad idea. Less than 15% of the stimulus will work its way into the economy in 2009, while the rest will go to support bankrupt social programs…a bottomless black hole.

Seinfeld fans will remember the episode where Jerry refers to people that appear to be the exact opposites of George and Kramer as being from “Planet Bizarro”. Planet Bizarro comes from a comic book featuring Superman and Batman. On Planet Bizarro, everything happens exactly opposite to what we are accustomed seeing on Earth.

As I write this, gold is up $40/ounce and is preparing to blow through $900. As you can see on the chart of gold it is also well above the 50 day moving average and has also just cracked its 200 day moving average. If we can close above $900 I look for a fast move back over $1000/ounce and new all-time highs.

Like many of you reading this, I made a lot of money during the Clinton presidency. Love him or hate him, Bill Clinton and his economic team knew how to stimulate the economy, and they knew how to make the stock market go higher, year after year. Under Clinton’s Presidency we saw the best bull market in US history,

Quick but important point. Everyone…especially those on CNBC and the so-called expert economists (an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one)…are saying that we cannot have another Depression because “this time” we saved the banking system, which will prevent another Depression from taking place.

Tomorrow is an historic day in the U.S. Our first black American President will assume the highest office in the land, and what most believe is the highest office in the world. Obama won the Presidency with a decisive mandate for “change that we can believe in” and beginning tomorrow we will begin to find out if this is for real,

Trillions are being spent by the US government on bail out after bail out, yet the economy continues to fade away. We’re quickly seeing the excitement from an Obama presidency dissipate, as leading Democrats (from his own party no less) openly question key components of Obama’s $2 trillion economic stimulus program.

On Friday, the December unemployment numbers were released and the official stats showed us losing another 524,000 jobs with unemployment reaching 7.2%. The total losses make 2008 the worst year since 1945, when the US was coming out of WWII.