• A most unusual day.  Lots of testimony on the Hill providing all sorts of headline cross currents.  Bottom line: there is no bottom to the amount of money both the Fed and Treasury are prepared to throw at the problem.
• The last few minutes turned them red.  But the market struggled all day, not really able to mount an offense or defense.  Closing below 700 isn’t good but somehow, now that it has happened there isn’t a horrible rush out the door.  But the overnight could bring unmet margin calls so a weak opening would not be a surprise.  Guess I have all angles covered!
• After the close PALM said it will miss revenue expectations and GOOG said it is going to be a (surprise!) tough year.  They stopped trading PALM while GOOG is down 3%.  This should affect technology shares tomorrow.
• Not even the President’s boisterous plea could rally the troops.  Am not at all sure this is an appropriate use of our President’s time.  From Kirk: Obama suggests nation should buy, buy, buy!
• A prescient reader was stopped out of FCX yesterday and today the shares jumped 7%. The advance had to do with China’s suggestion that the country could have 8% GDP growth this year.  That caused copper prices to soar as well as FCX.  Our reader was sharing the frustration of investors using stops.  Entering a stop of 7%, or so, saves one from an awful decline.  But sometimes stops have an uncanny way of being executed just before the stock goes up.  In effect the stock makes a bottom because all the sellers are gone. That is why many traders use “mental” stops rather than “machine” stops.  But I tend to second guess my mental stops so I use hard stops on the computer.  Second guessing tends to loose my money.
  
• Gold‘s price action is confusing.  The “fear” trade all of sudden isn’t working. Perhaps it is the fact that dealers tend to use gold scraps, rather than buy bullion, as the price goes higher.  And, at some point jewelry becomes too costly, even for the gold-mad Indians.  Nevertheless, I feel gold may have bottomed and could launch yet another assault on $1000.  The fear trade should make a come back.
  
• Watch for the opening tomorrow, it could be nasty.  Most everything is down pretty hard in the after-market.
  

But, hey, don’t let that stop you from having a nice Tuesday evening!