The news is saturated with Hank Paulson’s $700 bailout plan. This is diverting attention away from the increasingly bleak outlook for the wider economy.

Rick Pendergraft says no bailout can immediately solve the problems in the housing market. And all indicators suggest these will run well into 2009 at least.

Rick says your portfolio should be all about playing safe for now. He recommends eight inverse ETF plays to hedge against this downside risk.

This from Investor’s Daily Edge:

I can understand the fixation on the bailout, but other economic reports are getting lost as a result.

Last Thursday was a day that the mass distraction was working to its full capabilities. Investors chose to ignore all economic data in order to focus on the progress of Congress.

In case you missed it, durable goods orders for August were down 4.5 percent from July (I guess the stimulus checks ran out), initial jobless claims jumped to …

by Manuel Alvarez-Rivera, Puerto Rico Voters in Slovenia, which held a presidential election last year, return to the polls on Sunday to choose members of the lower house of Parliament, the 90-seat National Assembly. Slovenia's National Electoral Commission will have 2008 parliamentary election results in Slovene as well as English. This posting deals exclusively with the upcoming parliamentary election; Slovenia's 2007 presidential election has an overview of developments prior to 2008 in the former Yugoslav republic. Save for two mandates set aside for Italian and Hungarian ethnic minorities, National Assembly seats are filled at the nationwide level by the largest average method of proportional representation (the d'Hondt rule) among parties polling at least four percent of the national vote. Voters may choose a party list or an individual candidate, and a complex procedure provides for the subsequent allocation of seats among eight multi-member constituencies (each comprising eleven seats, which are ...

S&P has tried and failed to overcome the 1400 level consistently over the last couple of months. Today, it overcame 1400 for a bit only to fall back. in fact, as I write this, the rally that has lasted most of the day has completely evaporated and S&P is now lower on the day. For the last week, I have looked at my holdings again and again wondering if I should sell my long positions or trim down. Many of my stocks have been steady and forming nice bottoms or bases (Omniture, Marchex) and some have just been going up at any sign of a broader market rally. Visa, Potash, RIMM, Apple and Nintendo have all weathered the pull backs exceptionally well and I am torn whether to hold on and ride out the bear or to sell and buy at lower levels. But then I have never been good ...