The selling continued early in the trading session with investors worried about the survivability of the financials but a massive mid-day reversal propelled equities higher during Thursday trading on the Canadian Markets. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange added 2.20%, while the TSX Gold Index popped 5.1% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, gave back 0.62% with the declining issuers edging out the advancers by a 363 to 270 margin on a paltry 106 million shares traded.

Gold did nothing in the Far East during yesterday’s trading, but did develop a slightly positive bias as the London session advanced. The Comex open saw gold up about 1% immediately, only to have not-so-gentle hands hammer it (and any subsequent nascent rally) flat. The absolute bottom was during lunch hour in New York…and from there, a rally (short covering?) began.

Worries over the economy and corporate earnings weigh… Focus on inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama… S&P 500 futures off 1.5 pct, Dow futures off 1.1 pct, Nasdaq futures off 1.2 pct

Growing up in a depressed mining area (coal mining isn’t profitable for anyone but the mine owners) teaches you things you would never learn otherwise. This is the only advantage of growing up economically challenged. The word poor is so not cool anymore.

Taipan Daily’s Justice Litle review the current trends of gold, the U.S. Dollar and small caps. Finding surprising strength in the dollar in the short term, he finds greater strength in gold and gold stocks for the long term.

By Adam Lass, Senior Editor, Taipan Publishing Group

This American company has gained 777% the old-fashioned way: selling junk in backroom deals.

As regular readers know, I am a Ford man.

Back when I was a kid, you had to make three really important choices. First, you had to pick a political party. Didn’t matter how well you knew the candidates – you picked a party and that’s what you were.

We are talking Democrat or Republican here. Libertarians weren’t much discussed, and backing the Socialists could get your parents blackballed at work. And if you wanted peace around the dinner table, you just went with the same side your folks did.

Second, you had to choose “your” baseball, basketball and football teams. We didn’t have…

A BBC News article reports that Volkswagon (ETR:VOW) is backing away from merger talks with Porsche (ETR:PAH3).

Good news, Canadians – the president does not think you are scary. You have become a bit of a “bogeyman,” however, in regard to the growing din over U.S. healthcare reform. And a Canadian style government-run system wouldn’t fly in the United States.

The common adage has most every rally climbing a wall of worry. “If I buy now, I might get crushed for the fifth or sixth or seventh time in the past 10 years… but if I wait, the market might run on me, and I won’t see a decent entry price like this for years to come…”

When it comes to healthcare reform, people believe some very strange things. Or so says Cliff Asness, founder of AQR Capital Management. Today, the seven biggest “myths” are exposed…

Did Goldman Sachs get too greedy this time? If so, the gravy train could be coming to an end…

For two decades, the Japanese economy has been dead as a doornail – in spite of hefty Japanese consumer savings. Why?

If there’s anyone worth listening to in Washington these days, it’s Paul Volcker. So why is the great man nowhere to be found? When it comes to the ups and downs of the economy, there is only one man who can claim to have seen it all – Paul Volcker. At six-foot-seven, Volcker towers over all other policy makers in both the literal and figurative sense.

Does “stimulus” really work? Does quantitative easing work? The historical record suggests not. So what brought us out of the Great Depression? The answer might surprise, even though it shouldn’t…  A grumpy President Obama says that the $787 billion dollar stimulus package “has worked as intended.”