It’s official (or semi-official, anyway), we are in a recession.
While we’ve been using the "R" word for ages, finally Jeffrey Frankel of the Business Cycle Dating Committee (who are in charge of declaring recessions) agrees, saying: "The weight of evidence is now overwhelming: We are currently in recession." Despite this "stunning" revelation, our nation’s top economic thinkers are still unclear as to the timing, asking: "Did it start at the end of 2007, when employment and the other indicators peaked? Or was the stimulus from the government and from exports enough to postpone the turning point, and did the recession thus only start towards the end of the summer, when the financial crisis intensified very sharply? I am afraid that we need to wait for some more data and some more (regularly scheduled) revisions before we will know." Gee Jeff, let us know when you get a fix on it will you?
For a more informed look at how screwed up things are, check out "The Financial Crisis From A-Z" a tragically funny article from Forbes. You know things are bad when top financial writers turn to gallows humor when discussing the economy, part of the process of depersonalizing something that is going to die…









If this market hasn’t convinced you that buy and hold is a gamble - I don’t know what will.
Can we hold S&P 900 today?
Wow - We expected an up move in the FXI but this is incredible!
China’s financial system remains largely unscathed by the global credit squeeze, but
Well that was a lot of work to lose 400 points for the week!
It’s all about the Qs today.
"What are they doing here? They’re selling Mortimer - God help us, We’ve got to get to Wilson and tell him to sell… Wilson, you idiot, get back in there at once and sell, sell, sell!"





Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...