More than fifty years ago, LaVern Baker & The Gliders, brought Jim Dandy into the fray to lasso runaway horses, dry the tears in little girls’ eyes, and to save special mermaids from the hooks of villainous fishermen.

(Black Oak Arkansas’ rendition on You Tube will help you understand what your parents and grandparents survived.) Go, Jim Dandy! Go, Jim Dandy!

This generation’s “runaway train” is a slip sliding housing market victimized by lender’s greed, Wall Street’s creative dark side, and congressional tinkering with a process that worked well for centuries— and all by its lonesome, George.

Our little girls’ tears are those of small, vulnerable, main-street-residing investor’s whose retirement dreams have been shattered by securities markets that are little more than casinos, and instruments of mass financial destruction that even their creators cannot explain.

The mermaids? They are the taxpayers who …

The UK housing sector, already best by plunging demand and prices, has been hit with a potential body blow which could tip the economy into a deep recession. Taylor Wimpey, the country’s biggest home owner, has shocked the UK market and observers with the news that it has failed to agree a deal with potential new investors, forcing the stricken house builder to admit on Wednesday that it could breach banking covenants if the housing market does not recover. Coming with the news of poor sales figures for big retailer, Marks & Spencer, the Taylor Wimpey news will undermine investor confidence across the board. The company had been looking for around 500 million pounds ($A1 billion) in new capital from existing big and new shareholders, and had promised to write down the value of its land bank in Britain, Spain and other countries by around 660 million pounds (around $A1.4 billion). The write-down ...

We just got May existing home sales data from the National Association of Realtors. Here's what the numbers looked like ...* Sales climbed 2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.99 million in May from 4.89 million in April. That was slightly better than the average forecast of 4.95 million home sales. Sales were down 15.9% from the year-earlier reading of 5.93 million.* By region, sales rose 4.6% in the Northeast, 5.5% in the Midwest, and 2% in the West. They fell 0.5% in the South. By property type, sales climbed 1.6% in the single-family market and 5.5% in the condo arena. * The supply of homes for sale dipped 1.4% to 4.49 million units in May from 4.55 million in April, but climbed from 4.378 million a year earlier. On a months supply at current sales pace basis, inventory dipped to 10.8 months from ...

Make sure you get paid. The massive bull market of 1982-1999 changed the investment landscape dramatically, making growth investors out of everyone new to investing. Thanks to discount brokerages like E*trade and Ameritrade, investing was more accessible than ever before. Throw in the creation of 401(k)s and other investment focused retirement plans and you’ve got a genuine investing boom. Between 1983 and 1999, the percentage of US households involved in the market jumped from 19% to 49%. Amidst all the hubbub, dividends and income plays became unfashionable. With stock prices soaring to new highs almost every day in the late ‘90s, investors wanted growth, not boring payouts. And we all know how well this philosophy performed during the Tech Crash. One of the most quoted statistics regarding the stock market is the view that stocks have returned average annual gains of 10% since 1926. Far ...

Teri Horton may be the greatest living investor.

You wouldn’t think so to look at her. Horton, a retired truck driver, lives in a trailer furnished and decorated with items she found dumpster diving. She doesn’t own any stocks. She doesn’t even know what a junk bond is. And if you asked her to forecast the Dow, she’d probably tell you to get lost. You see, Horton deals in the most illiquid asset class in the world: fine art. And she got into it by complete accident.

In the mid-90s, Horton was browsing through a thrift store in her hometown of Costa Mesa, California, looking for a gift to cheer up a depressed friend. She came across a massive “ugly” painting. She asked the clerk how much the painting cost. When the clerk responded “$8”, Teri said, “I love my friend, but I don’t love her that much. Couldn’t we do …

In Friday’s essay I warned that stocks were headed for an ugly autumn. Looking at Friday’s action—the S&P 500 fell 3%— it’s possible the trouble is already here.

As I’ve mentioned several times on these pages, the market rally post-Bear Stearns was largely facilitated by phony economic data courtesy of the US government, the Federal Reserve pumping dollars into the system like there’s no tomorrow, and dumb money piling into stocks, thinking the worst is over.

Looking at these trends, as well as the market’s declining volume— a telltale sign of a “sucker’s rally” —I forecast that eventually this web of lies and frauds would come undone and the market would enter another fierce correction. Friday may have marked the beginning of this.

I strongly suggest you take steps to protect your portfolio now, if you haven’t already done so.

The first thing …

Most of these items can be filed under the heading of "things the market doesn't care about as it races upward, trusting everything will be fine in 6 months" :) Myself, I am fascinated with the dichotomy between the real economy and the stock market economy; I believe in the coming decade the divergence could grow even larger as more money is concentrated in the upper classes of society and less profits are due to the US as each year passes. But to see it so early, is interesting and I think has to do more with the printing fest at the Fed. We'll end this post with a bright spot... if you live in Forth Worth, TX Real economy issues that don't matter to Wall Streeters Credit Crunch Issue #1: GE to Stop Financing Boats, and Motor Homes (ironically 2 things I think are excellent shorts) I went ...