Anecdotal Blog a Day Late

Ok, so I'm a day late. The last two days on Wall Street have been mind boggling. Beginning with yesterday, Hank Paulson the Secretary of the Treasury decides that he doesn't want to use the $700 billion Bailout Package (renamed to the less insulting TARP). During his speech in which he broke the news that he was changing gears on the bailout package he cracked more one-liners than Mitch Hedberg. Are you kidding me? You've just admitted to the world that when you adamently pushed for the bailout package, you didn't know what you were talking about. I told you I knew the plan as it was, wouldn't work. Now his antidote is to purchase preferred stock as a way to infuse money into the banks. Too bad he's burned through almost half the money already. The result of the change of pace by Paulson was a big down day on Wall Street. I think fear finally set in on the street. Today, HUGE up day, let me repeat myself, HUGE. I don’t know the specifics but almost 1,000 point swing in the last hour of trading to end up 6.67%. If we would have seen a +6.67% day a year and a half ago people would have been very worried and confused. Now, we’re just relieved to see some green. I bought some GE last week, the dividend was approved by the board and is safe through 2009, which means if we have somewhat of a recovery in 2009 the dividend will not be cut in the near future. Other stocks that piqued my interest: PFE (Pfizer drug company), MO (Altria), and VZ (Verizon). . . all are looking very strong with very attractive dividends which I believe are fairly stable.

As bad as the banking sector is right now, it is still the best business to be in because the government will always bail you out, and you will always get your end of the year bonus. Want to know how the banks justify giving bonuses (their excuse this week)? They're latest claim is that the money was already set aside and allocated for end of the year bonuses, and that they need the money from the government to run day-to-day services. Anyone else see a problem with that?

In the spirit of my anecdotal blog I’m going to revel in Barack’s win and call him the Honorable Politician of the Week. . . again.