The Problems For Stocks

Stocks are at their lows for the day. There are two problems:

1) the devil is now in the details, as traders are concerned that the Treasury bill will be either dramatically watered down (Senator Schumer asked Sec. Paulson if he would be satisfied with substantially less than $700 billion, and then let the next administration deal with it--Paulson wisely said "No"), or so burdened with punitive measures that banks will be reluctant to participate;

2) stock traders are playing a straight "global slowdown trade" this afternoon as there is notable weakness in commodity stocks and industrials.

Any down close is somewhat discouraging.

Consider: after closing flat last week, the S&P 500 is already down 5.3 percent this week.

Last week's 2-year closing low on the S&P 500 was 1156. We are only 45 points from that.

Bulls need to start putting up a better fight here.

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