It’s bad out there.

How bad is it? continue reading...

From DShort, via SAI.  Yippie.  Let’s plow another trillion into loser companies (US banks) and industries (US auto).  You’ll “save” a few jobs in the short term, but in the long term, the only jobs you will have created will be soup kitchen servants. continue reading...

Eric Jackson - who led the campaign to bring change to Yahoo - is looking for the next target.  He’s looking at notable blue chips that have taken a recent hit, namely: Citigroup, Apple, GE, and many others.

Check out the list and vote for the company you think he should open a can of whoop ass on. continue reading...

Washington Post recaps the year in the markets:

- Wall Street rang out its worst year since the Great Depression yesterday, leaving shareholders $6.9 trillion the poorer.
- In Germany, stocks were down 40 percent, in Japan, 42 percent, in Brazil, 41 percent. Taken together, all of the world’s stocks lost 48% last year.
- The Dow Jones industrial average, an index of 30 blue-chip stocks, and the S&P, a broader index watched by market professionals, were down 34 percent and 38 percent, respectively, their deepest losses since the 1930s.
- The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index was down 41 percent, its worst year since the exchange was created in 1971.
- The Dow closed yesterday at 8776.39, while the S&P closed at 903.25.
- The Nasdaq closed at 1577.03.
- The market for crude oil was simply unlike anything we’ve ever seen: after surging to $147 a barrel in the summer, prices tumbled to $44.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday, falling 70% from its peak and finishing down about 50% for the year. Had Israel not bombed Gaza in its latest misadventure, I am fairly certain the price would be even lower. While long term demand for oil remains bullish (not that you could tell given the 2008 chart), some are fearing that it could slide all the way down to $25 if the economy gets worse. continue reading...

Some of the bulls out there say that stocks are cheap (and were cheap when the DJIA crossed below 8,000) when valued relative to next year’s earnings… the problem is most of those projected earnings are straight out of Alice in Wonderland and will be cut back.

Here is a very bearish take on it, which has more to do with replacement value of assets.  By that benchmark, forget Dow 7,000… we’re talking Dow 6,000! continue reading...

Looks like 2008 will be a banner year, for all of the wrong reasons: here are the returns per year on the S&P500. continue reading...