Do you thing we’re in a typical recession? If you answered yes, you would be wrong. According to data there is nothing typical about what going on. The world markets are very showing volatility never seen before. In a typical recession, stocks will go up about six months before the economy. But it looks like the economy might need to recover first. Every time a few bad reports come out the markets drop like a bad habit, then go back up the next day. We need good results from the economy to turn the markets around. We need good reports from just about every industry out there. Right now the Insurance Industry is getting hit pretty hard. People are losing their jobs, which means there losing their health care, life insurance and even car insurance. These are only a few insurance products I have listed; there are a lot more out there. Sooner or later people will start to seek out new insurance rates. Some will even look for car insurance reviews , life insurance reviews, and other products. So let’s hope for some go reports on the economy this week, we really need it.

Today on Wall Street might not be a good one. Now insurance giant American International Group is struggling with paying out over $100 million to the group that caused their problems. Some say that this group was due over $120 million. But AIG and the real owner, the U.S People are saying take it or leave it. I don’t think these people are due anything, they should’ve fired all of them, contracts or not. Another problem for AIG is that insurance advertising has really picked up on TV, online, and in the streets. Insurance companies are really pushing for our business. This makes for the outcome of the day very hard to predict. Then again who really knows what will happen anymore. The whole financial markets are in a global credit crisis, yes, still today. Think about it for a second, 3 of the 5 biggest investment banks are gone, 2 in one day last year. And now the world’s largest insurance company, AIG will be gone if they don’t turn themselves around soon. The Fed has left the interest rate at zero percent to stabilize the economy.

The Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are having a 2-day meeting on the state of the economy starting Monday. On Tuesday most analysts think they will cut the rate by .50 percent. An interest rate cut of .05 percent will but the key rate to it’s lowest point ever, .50 percent. I think they could go all the way and drop it down to zero. And why not take it to zero, it can’t hurt us anymore then we’re already hurting. And who knows, it just might help free up some money for the banks to start lending again. With us being in the worst financial crisis since the 1930s every bit is going to help. But some analyst’s feel dropping the key interest rate might not be enough. If this move isn’t going to be enough what will be enough. I also keep hearing everyone saying things are going to get worst before things get better, but how much worst can things get. Every business sector is in financial crisis, which has never happened. So we’re is it going to get worst, can anyone answer that?

Most of you already know about the arrest of Bernard Madoff, but did you know the list of clients he had? I was just reading that Madoff said the list of clients that where part of the Ponzi scheme where 25. But that seems not to be the case as Federal Investigators dig deeper. Some of the affected ones of this scheme is Former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon and J. Ezra Merkin and the chairman of GMAC Financial Services just to name a few. This scheme as also reached a few non-profit groups, banks, health system, hedge fund and even the Town of Fairfield, Conn. I feel that Bernard Madoff should go to prison until the day he dies. This man had everything, and blow it all away on scheme. And in the end he tried to give what money was left to his family and friends, who turned him in. That’s right, he only got caught because of a few close family members turned him in to the SEC who contacted the Federal Investigators. This guy gets my biggest loser vote for the year.

Yahoo Inc. shareholders are pushing the Yahoo Board to at lease sell part of the company. One of Yahoo’s biggest investor wants them to sell its search operations for around $15 billion. If Yahoo sold the search operations at that price shareholders would net about $22 a share, which is much higher than Yahoo is going for today. The big pusher of this deal is Ivory Investment Management, which also stated that the Board of Directors where “acting unreasonably” in the deal with Microsoft. The real problem is out going CEO Jerry Yang who is holding out for about $37 a share. If you don’t know already Jerry Yang is a co-creator of Yahoo and still has a lot of pull within Yahoo. He’s only stepping to the side because of some of the problems he’s created with shareholders. He’s still going to remain working with Yahoo; he’s not going away, just working in the background. I think Jerry Yang is a very smart man and the shareholders are just driven by what’s going on around them today. If they would listen to him and hold on to Yahoo stock they would make a lot more down the road. Yahoo is worth way more than the $33 a share Microsoft offered a few months ago. But shareholders are just looking to sell now instead of waiting a year till things improve. Oh well, their loss!

It seems that Wall Street will open higher in hopes that Congress will bailout the automakers. Sources close to the deal say that it could be a done deal today with President Bush signing off on it. This just shows how tough things are on Wall Street. Just news of any changes for the good can move the markets by huge percentages. And investors seem to be looking past the latest report on wholesale inventories, which dropped by 1.1 percent in October. I guess investors are looking at any good news, even if it comes has a bailout package. But reality will set in later on in the day and the markets will drop, happens every day.

Today on Wall Street the stocks took a tumble because of tomorrows November employment report. I was reading that economists expect the Labor Department to report the jobless rate went up to around 6.5 to 6.8 percent. Economists also think that their going to report that companies cut about 320,000 jobs. If the report shows over 300,000 jobs cut that will push us to almost 1.5 million job cuts this year so far. That’s a whole lot of people out of work. Hopeful with a new President taking office in January things will start to change. If the Labor report for November is below what economist expected we could see a huge jump on Wall Street. It could very well show that things are starting to get better. But the chance of any go news tomorrow is very slim. We can only hope that go news will come very soon. So keep your fingers crossed for some good news.

Another big company to let die, I don’t think so. Citigroup expects me to pay my bill every month, why can’t they pay their own bills. I’m so sick and tired of company’s getting bailout on the American peoples backs. I really can careless if Citigroup goes under. What I do care about is how the American people’s money is spent. And I think that most Americans are feeling cheated by their own government, as I feel the same. We should stop handing out the money to these so-called “companies to big to die.” I would also like to know what the government has in their plans to help the average American out there. Because if we become to scared to spend what little money we have left no amount of money will save any company. So stop wasting our money and start making better choices with it.

I wonder how the Dow Jones will end today. With the Dow Jones ending under 8,000 points yesterday it’s anyone’s guess how it will end today. Well, I would like to take a shoot at saying where it will end up for the day. I think it will end up around 300 points. The day will start off slow, because of the weak unemployment benefits report that just came out. More and more people are losing their jobs at a rapid rate. And as we get closer to the Holiday season we’ll have a go understanding how people will spend. That’s the problem, no one is buying things, and you really can’t blame them. Anyway, around 1PM there will be so many bargains laying around investors will start buying. And when the buying starts everything starts to go up. So if you’re going to buy stocks today make sure you buy around 11AM. This is the way I see the day going. And you know what, I could be dead wrong and the stocks could tank all day. As always, do your own research on any stock your going to buy. I will say, stay away from the automakers stocks, there all ready to go under.

Update: Looks like I was dead wrong. And it looks to be just has bad tomorrow.

I just read that Citigroup Inc. is cutting about 53,000 jobs in the next coming months. I really don’t have much to say about people losing their jobs besides it sucks. And it’s never good thing for the economy or the people losing their job. Citigroup is having huge problems because of their huge losses to the tone of $2.8 billion in just the third quarter. The problem with companies like Citigroup they just grow to big to fast. They then start taking on shady deals and have wild spending habits. No one ever knows who’s in charge and things start to get out of control. Getting the news that your job is being eliminated is never a good thing, but I say just keep your head up and move on. Most companies today only really care about the bottom line and really don’t care about their employees. So do yourself a favor and don’t bother looking back.