I believe we will continue to find direction in the market with the news due out next week.

The Federal Budget is due out on May 12th, posed to reveal the typical boost from tax receipts. However, the governments stimulus package will lead to a $400 billion deficit for the year.

Wal-Mart is due to release earnings on May 13th, which I believe will uncover the true consumer sentiment. EPS for the retailer are forecast to be up 10% from a year ago. I think this data will confirm a shift in consumer spending from larger, brand-name stores to the discount stores. Later on in the week (May …

Between the lousy weather and the battered down stock market, it’s been a very mundane weekend.  I’ve taken to, in large part, ignoring the day to day happenings in the stock market, and I think I’m a bit more sane for doing it.

Blogging about many of the financial headlines these days doesn’t seem to interest me as much… Are we in a recession or not?  Who cares?

For the last week, I’ve been checking in on the overall market trends about once a day, versus once an hour or so.  My investments are tied up in fairly secure long-term, proven companies, so it’s not like I’m hunting for the straw that …

Failure is such a harsh word. I have to wonder why. After all, don’t we learn more from our failure than our successes?

Capitalism lives and breaths by failure and success, and the fact that you are given the opportunity to succeed is what makes America great.

For that, I’m sorry to say that I felt a little bit of relief to learn that the Senate today killed a bill that would have bestowed upon judges the power to cut interest rates and principal on troubled mortgages to help desperate borrowers trapped in sub-prime mortgages keep their homes.

The fact that naive people were taken advantage of on the front of …

Next week will reveal a lot about the state of our economy:

Institute for Supply Management data - April 1st.
The institutes’s data for March suggests a drop to 48.0 which would signal that the economy is close to falling into a recession.

Joint Economic Committee Meeting - April 2nd.
Ben Bernanke is set to testify before the congressional Joint Economic Committee on the out look of our economy. The committee will discuss whether our economy is already in a recession or heading into one.

Earnings: Best Buy and RIM - April 2nd.
Earnings reports for Best Buy (BBY: chart, web, Y!) and Research in Motion (RIMM: …

There have been many terms tossed around lately stemming from the latest economic and financial news. One of the most popular has been the phrase “a run on the bank”.

What does that really mean?

A run on the bank is really a type of financial crisis that occurs when bank customers rush to withdraw their funds over fears that the bank may go under. Such as with Bear Stearns (BSC: chart, web, Y!), when word got out that they weren’t doing so hot, and you saw the mad rush to sell the stock, dropping the price per share from nearly $100 to under …

Walgreens reports earnings - March 24th
What a difference a day makes. Leap year is going to be particularly good to Walgreens (WAG: chart, web, Y!).

On Monday the drugstore chain reports second-quarter earnings, and those numbers garner help from one extra day’s worth of business in February. Same-store sales rose 8.3% in February, and analysts expect that February 29th sales will push the EPS up to 67 cents.

Oracle Insight - March 26th
Oracle (ORCL: chart, web, Y!) is scheduled to report fiscal third quarter earnings after the market closes on the 26th. Normally I don’t follow Oracle, but …

I’ve been hearing the term “capitulation” being thrown around a lot lately on many of the talking heads programs. In context, it’s used like this: “…we won’t see the bottom of the market until we see capitulation”.

So what exactly does that mean?

In street sense, capitulation means to surrender or give up. You hear it in military history discussions frequently in terms of a surrender. However, in Wall Street sense, it means to “give up” any previous gains as investors sell equities in an effort to get out of the market and into less risky investments.

You’ll see capitulation set …

CoBank is one of the largest American cooperative banks serving rural America. Recently, the company said its shareholders approved a plan to issue up to $250 million in preferred stock in 2008 or 2009.

The stock may be issued in one or more issuances, the firm said, and in addition, CoBank shareholders also agreed to amend bank bylaws to increase the amount of preferred stock it can issue to $1 billion from $500 million.

The bank has already issued $500 million in preferred stock since 2001 along with $500 million in subordinated debt.

Why would a lending institution that lends money to the likes of …

The Fed cut its discount rate by 75 basis points, even when the street predicted a 100% chance of a full 100 point cut.

Whats more important though is that Goldman Sachs (GS: chart, web, Y!) and Lehman Brothers (LEH: chart, web, Y!) both reported smaller than expected profit declines, easing fears that the liquidity crisis that sank Bear Stearns (BSC: chart, web, Y!) could spread to other investment banks. While normally I don’t view a “smaller than expected decline” report as overly bullish, I do believe it helps isolate the …

Jim Cramer is losing credibility… hand over fist!

Final word? Sorry. Yeah, that about sums it up.