November 14th edition

Good Morning All,

Another week of fear and loathing is about to enter the books and with a little bit of luck and a whole lot of optimism it just may finish with a positive tone. Yesterday we saw what was effectively a 900 point afternoon reversal move to the upside and although this wasn't quite the way I had perceived that our "back to back 1000 point days" would begin I guess I will enjoy the moment and anxiously await the outcome of today's adventure. The G20 meetings, largely ignored until now, are finally beginning to draw the media attention they deserve. Even though the final draft that will emanate from this historic event is unlikely to contain immediate short term solutions to our international crisis, the very concept of having the world's most important leaders (save one) present together in the same room, can only bode well for the future of cooperation, agreement and progress. The elephant not in the room is of course the President elect, although his support for such negotiation is already well known and his new kind of leadership a harbinger of future goodwill. Economists and historians now look back upon the first weeks of the July 1944 meetings of what would become the Bretton Woods Agreement as an historic turning point, I suspect that this too will one day be seen as such. Next on the agenda may be a Marshall Plan for America's middle class to complement the one the banks and top 5% of its citizenry have long been in receipt of during the Bush years.

Meanwhile at least three major wars are raging in Africa while the "West" runs around the Middle East chasing phantoms dressed in costumes, but more about that next week or whenever some semblance of calm returns to markets.

Futures are pointing to a down opening as more bad economic news has interrupted markets. Yesterday I suggested that we might watch to see if INTEL's stock price could rise in the face of bad earnings guidance...it did. Today the same may phenomena may be observed with Nokia and Sun Micro. As Art Cashin notes this morning, a successful retest of yesterday's reversal rally could well lead to a significant upward move. In my words, if we get some decent follow through today or early next week, those of you still left with a truck and a reverse gear ought to consider backing it up to the loading dock. Bear markets end long before the good news begins.