October 30th, 2008 Edition

Good Morning All,

The extremely oversold condition of world markets that existed at the outset of this week is well on its way to a massive self correction. I have suggested more than once in recent days that a great downside crescendo would quickly be followed by a "jaw dropping" (in the words of Art Cashin) upside rally. Well the selling climax was not quite as dramatic or satisfying as we would have preferred, at least not in U.S. markets, but it certainly was in Asia and in Europe. It has also been historically severe in commodities, currencies and much of the Toronto stock exchange. This may also be seen as the pre Obama bounce by some of the more biased observors, a group to which I proudly belong. This rally now appears to be gaining legs and may well project to mid January (bumps along the way) when indexes should well have recovered 50% of their bear market losses. After this point or this date, remembering the rule that you may get one or the other right but never both, we will reconsider but first of all enjoy the ride.

My next career has clearly been set out as last night's speech by Barack was right on the Copp target of "vision talk". McCain was not even mentioned, this was a soppy but brilliant exploitation of America's feel good, feel hope sentiment. Cheers to Obama's staff and to the man himself for running a superb campaign from start to finish. Now if I were a religious person I would be in prayer.