Dow Jones futures up 330 :)

http://money.cnn.com/data/premarket/

Asia mixed, but some nice moves...especially Australia up 5%+

http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia

One day of possible reprieve as we careen from crisis to crisis!

But I do think it's looking good because of what happened in Europe today.

But at least it looks semipositive.

I was watching Bloomberg News today (I'd never watched it before--it's good!) and the use of the word "meltdown" was starting to get to me.

I saw a Swiss financier being interviewed a couple of hours ago who manages a $140 billion (or maybe it's 140 billion euros) fund, and he said he was now cautiously optimistic whereas he'd foreseen a complete collapse if nothing had changed (in terms of government backing) from last week. He said we'd taken one or two steps back from the abyss--the abyss was still there, but on the other hand, there was now some potential for growth. He had been such a downer (or realist, whatever) that to hear him say "cautiously optimistic" was WONDERFUL.

I think that a good leader (hint: Obama) could get us through the necessary rebooting of our consumerism/savings backasswardness. I've been reading about England during WWII and people really responded well to the "we're all in this together" ethic. But it took some really good leadership to make that happen. I think people can respond positively to enduring deprivation if they know WHY they're doing it and feel as if it's in a greater cause. Materialism leads to such emptiness... pulling together can give a sense of purpose, and of community, that can make getting along with less much less painful than it would be if we were all struggling separately. Plus we don't have to worry about planes dropping bombs on us as we weed our victory gardens like people did in WWII, so that's nice.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7431017&mesg_id=7431017

This is just the triage of the problem. Next he has plans on a stimulus package.

Citibank, JPM-Chase, Wells Fargo, BOA.

Buy big banks. Sell big energy.

They've had their run. They've enjoyed a period when their friends in the White House did everything possible to make the oil business profitable. That won't be present in 2009.

We're in a recession. Demand is already down because of it. I don't see big oil company stocks making a quick recovery, but big bank stocks had better go up in the near term, or we're in more trouble.

I could be wrong.

there wasn't any gas at all at certain stations down south due to Ike?

Isn't that one way for an artificial appearance of demand destruction because there are no supplies?

When refineries were out of operation, supply of gasoline dipped in selected markets. That would not have affected worldwide demand of oil.

The whole world is sick right now, and that means demand for oil will be down. That means the big oil companies will likely see values lessen or flatten.

As I said, the future may prove me wrong, but I don't think it will.

other than that, everything is looking bright and sunny. :hi: