HIDDEN VALUE Dear Value Seeker,

We hope you had a happy holiday.

We’re on our way back to our home in Buenos Aires tonight. We’re looking forward to getting back, but not to the nine-hour flight with our nine-month-old son… It’s likely to be grueling.

But at least we’re not in the retail business…

They are likely to be disappointed by the holiday season. According to the Commerce Department, consumer spending fell 0.6% in November, the fifth monthly decline in a row.

The Wall Street Journal reports that 10% to 26% of U.S. retailers are now in danger of filing for Chapter 11 in 2009 or 2010.

That’s up from 4% to 6% of retailers in trouble in the last two years.

It’s no surprise, really.

More Americans are out of work now than at any time since 1982. The number of American’s filing for unemployment for the first time leapt to 586,000

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HIDDEN VALUE

Dear Value Seeker,

The good news is there is only one month left before the end of the year.

But that’s still plenty of time for the crisis that began in the subprime mortgage market to wreak more havoc in 2008.

Especially if today’s carnage is anything to go by.

The Dow has plunged over 400 points at the time of writing. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq have also been taken to the woodshed.

Oil is back below $50 a barrel. Gold has given up $50 to reach $770 an ounce.

Last week’s bailout-fueled optimism has given way to economic reality.

Today, the US manufacturing index slumped to its lowest level since 1982.

Retailers did manage to tempt bargain hunters out on Black Friday. But once the mega-discounted products had gone, so did much of the shoppers’ enthusiasm.

We’re reminded that the America’s recession is now a year old. The wonks

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