Wednesday, December 16th, 9am

• Yesterday’s euphoria is being met with reality this morning.  Business stinks and earnings will suffer.  The market can be a mine field.   Witness Satyam Computer (SAY).  After a management flip-flop on several deals the shares fell 54%.
• Bonds are soaring in pre-market trading. TLT, an ETF, has made another 52-week high.
• GE will hold the dividend through ’09 but with industrial business soft there are no such promises for 2010.
• Almost every corporate press release quotes the president of the company saying that he/she has never experienced such difficult times.
• Nevertheless, buying the dips seems to be the play here.
• I have been watching The TED spread index ( Ted Spread) for some months.  The idea is that as the spread declines to the 1.60-1.40 area it means banks are really making loans.   Yesterday the spread seemed to decline towards that area.  You can play around with the Bloomberg Bloomberg.com: Investment Tools screen a little to see the rate of change, etc.