Whether consumers are willing to open their wallets is a big theme for Tuesday's markets.
First, Wal-mart's quarterly earnings will be reported in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.   Read More

Social networking is all the rage on the Internet, but does it fit for financial discussions?   Read More

Wall Street is increasingly worried that bubbling over oil prices will scald the economy and the stock market. That's just one concern for traders in the week ahead which also has inflation data, retail sales and housing numbers. There are also earnings reports, TV networks' upfronts for advertisers, and plenty of Fed, Fed, Fed.    Read More

Risk aversion is definitely back today. You can see it in the dollar/yen, where the yen has really strengthened today. The AIG news (down 8 percent) told us that a lot of the bad news is still not priced in. Big momentum stocks like Visa, Mastercard, Nucor, US Steel, Anadarko, Apache, Bidu, Apple, and Google all saw profit-taking today. But here's the big problem: oil closing up five straight days, closing at a new high.   Read More

With increasing anxiety, the stock market is looking over its shoulder at the energy markets. Oil briefly topped $126 per barrel today, and as oil trades above $125, we wonder how much these high prices will spread out to affect the consumer, corporate profits, corporate spending and government spending.   Read More

The AIG damage is limited, and that is good news: other P&C insurers are not showing any serious declines; financials in modest rally; the VIX is already dropping. The biggest factor: the Citi conference call, with Pandit and CFO Crittenden, appears to have gone well. Here are a few headlines...   Read More

Asian and European markets, as well as U.S. futures, weaker on the AIG news. Dollar stronger. For the moment, the risk aversion trade (long bonds, short financials) is back on. Oil at new high not helping. Also: Circuit City is allowing Blockbuster and Carl Icahn to conduct due diligence.   Read More

Commodities and energy are likely to stay in the driver's seat Friday. Those were the power groups, and the financials were the weaklings again in Thursday's stock market.    Read More

Both the variety and volume of stock being sought by short sellers this week has increased significantly, says John Tabacco, CEO of Locatestock.com. Lehman and Crox remain among the stocks sought most by short sellers, and solar stocks are in the top 10 on his firm's list.   Read More

So we have a gold ETF, a silver ETF, an oil and natural gas ETF. How about a platinum ETF? Looks like it's coming--soon--and get this--you can go long and short the commodity. E-TRACS UBS should be launching two new ETNs fairly soon:    Read More