Summer is over…and the rally may be over, too.

It’s back to business. No more long lunches. No more afternoons painting windows. No more soirees in the evening.

We return to our lonely métier – chronicling the decline and fall of the US economy…and the Anglo-American empire too….

Two bits of news signal the scale of this trend. But first, here’s one two-bit piece of news: the Dow lost 185 points yesterday. Could this mark the beginning of the end for the rally? Yes, it could. Should you be out of US stocks? Yes, you should.

But let’s turn back to our ‘decline and fall’ chronicles…

From Florida, comes news of the first drop in population in 60 years. “Unemployment is soaring,” reports USA Today. “Florida is second to California on foreclosures.”

Yes, dear reader, there is trouble in the sand states…

Florida lost a net 58,000 people this year…for the first time since the 1940s.

Why would

I’m confident that the trend for REITs will be down through the end of 2009. That’s why I suggest buying the UltaShort Real Estate ProShares ETF (NYSE: SRS. Current price $18.52) as a way to profit from weakness in the REIT sector. But fasten your seatbelt! SRS will be volatile!

REITs may appear cheap, but they are very dangerous to hold right now. A basic tenet of corporate finance is that a company or a sector is only creating value for shareholders if its return on invested capital (ROIC) exceeds its weighted average cost of capital (WACC). If its WACC exceeds its ROIC, it is destroying value. This describes the situation facing the REIT sector for the next few years.

Most REITs cannot float unsecured debt at anything less than 10% or 12%, so their cost of capital is high and rising. At the same time, due to the

I’m confident that the trend for REITs will be down through the end of 2009. That’s why I suggest buying the UltaShort Real Estate ProShares ETF (NYSE: SRS. Current price $18.52) as a way to profit from weakness in the REIT sector. But fasten your seatbelt! SRS will be volatile!

REITs may appear cheap, but they are very dangerous to hold right now. A basic tenet of corporate finance is that a company or a sector is only creating value for shareholders if its return on invested capital (ROIC) exceeds its weighted average cost of capital (WACC). If its WACC exceeds its ROIC, it is destroying value. This describes the situation facing the REIT sector for the next few years.

Most REITs cannot float unsecured debt at anything less than 10% or 12%, so their cost of capital is high and rising. At the same time, due to the

Risk Assets soar!  German Investor Confidence surprises!  High yielders kicking tail…  Who’s afraid of the SNB? And Now… Today’s Pfennig! OK… Speaking of patience… I think that’s what we’ll all have to possess a lot of going forward with these currencies and stocks… Here’s what I’m talking about… Yesterday morning it looked as though the recent rally in stocks was over, complete, pack up the bags, get on the bus, Gus… And with the trading theme of throwing all risk assets in the same bag and trading them alike that’s been in place since last July, this would seem to be

Despite gold’s best attempts to rally in the Sydney market, a determined seller took the price down once Hong Kong opened. It rallied a bit until 1:00 p.m. in Hong Kong (midnight in New York) and then got sold off again until shortly after London opened. A rally commenced until shortly after the Comex opened…and that was it for the day…as gold was capped every time it tried to rally over $980. Estimated volume was 121,349 contracts, with a switch effect of 8,040.

Silver was similar…with its top price coming at 1:00 p.m. in Hong Kong. A small rally in London was crushed…as silver came under selling pressure about an hour before the Comex opened. After the Comex close, silver did manage to gain a bit in electronic trading on the Globex.

The precious metals trading pattern sure looked like prices wanted to rise, but were beaten into submission by one or

…

Retail experts are predicting one of the most dismal holiday shopping seasons in decades this year – a crucial stretch that will set the stage for poor retail sales throughout 2009.

As the U.S. economy decelerates, pummeled by the aftershocks of the worldwide financial crisis, consumers have been hit from every direction: Unemployment has spiked, and will continue to rise, economy unwinds and continues to work through the aftershocks of the global credit crisis, consumers have been beset on all sides. Unemployment is up, home prices are down, and credit is hard to come by.

And although inflation is beginning to moderate somewhat – slowing to a pace of 3.7% year-over-year in October – it’s still well above the U.S. Federal Reserve’s desired target rate of 2.0%.

With rampant inflation no longer artificially propping up consumer spending figures, retail sales have really started to lose their