By Jason Simpkins Associate Editor High oil prices, a steep drop in consumer confidence, declining home values and a weak dollar conspired to drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its lowest point in two years, and made for the benchmark index’s worst June since the Great Depression. After falling more than 300 points last Thursday and extending losses on Friday, the Dow lost 4.2% in the week ended closing at 11,346.51 - its lowest level since September 2006. All totaled, the Dow plunged 9.5% in June - its worst mid-year performance since the 18% drop in the 1930s. Story continues below… Sign up right now, and we’ll send you an important new report for free: “The Three Best Investments in Asia.”...

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is trying to support the dollar, making rare statements on Tuesday about how the weak dollar has contributed to inflation, and that the Fed is closely monitoring the dollar. Bernanke went on to repeat his inflation concerns while speaking at Harvard University yesterday, saying that “some indicators of longer-term inflation expectations have risen in recent months, which is a significant concern for the Federal Reserve. We will need to monitor that situation closely." Interestingly enough, his comments come at a time when my models have been forecasting a bounce in the buck, and a short-term correction in gold, oil and other natural resources. So Bernanke’s unconvincing attempt to support the dollar comes as no surprise to me. These moves tend to happen at normal turning points in the market, which proves once again that it’s not the news that drives the markets necessarily, but it’s the ...

Today markets fretted about Lehman Bros. and pondered the messages from Bernanke and impending congressional hearings regarding commodity market “speculation”. The dollar rallied from Bernanke’s comments and commodity markets were pressured by it and potential congressional action.

Volume picked up substantially from the malaise of the past few weeks and breadth was negative particularly on NASDAQ volume. [Yahoo/Finance has an obvious glitch in adding columns.]

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In a speech this morning at an international monetary conference in Spain, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke took the unusual step of speaking out on the dollar saying that the central bank is “attentive” to the weak U.S. dollar and that it has contributed to an “unwelcome rise” in inflation. He went on to say that over time, Fed policy will be a key factor “ensuring that the dollar remains a strong, stable currency.”For some reason the markets were surprised by this. I wasn’t. What else did they expect him to say? That he supports a weak dollar? Of course not. Central bankers can talk about how they are going to control inflation, and not let it get out of hand, but their actions will be entirely different. Regardless of what Bernanke says, our own Federal Reserve wants the dollar pushed lower and as much asset inflation as possible because it’s …

I am doing about 2 weeks worth of transactions in 1 day... exhausting. Just to avoid being a pig I am taking down my Cummins Engine (CMI) by 1/3rd. I restarted this position April 18 as a weak dollar, undervalued US multinational [Apr 18: Restarting Cummins Engine as the Rest of the World Moves on Without USA] in the $53s. I am now looking back at old holdings that are industrial in nature and am going back to Cummins Engine (CMI) - which has great exposure to India and China. This was a previous fund position, that I closed in November [Nov 13: Closing Cummins Engine] correctly anticipating a selloff and weak period for these type of names. Since then, on April 30th it reported excellent earnings [Apr 30: Cummins Engine Excellent Report on Strong International Sales] at which point I sold 200 of my 500 shares in ...