Not too long ago it seemed that everybody loved China.  It was a panacea, a magic bullet, the answer to every question. How can the US avoid recession? China. Why are the stock markets racing higher? China. Why is oil over $140 a barrel? China. You may have noticed that all this cheerleading has gone very quiet, very quickly.

President elect Barack Obama is expected to move quickly to try and revive the US economy. Theo Casey says a new fiscal stimulus will be targeted at job creation and infrastructure building instead of free handouts. However, it still won’t stop the recession. And it will add even more zeros to Treasury debt.

In May I wrote a piece on the popular market adage, “Sell in May and go away.” The principle was cooked up after a study by the Stock Market Almanac into market timing. It researched when the best stock market performance is achieved.

The “experts” got it wrong, again. You may recall the optimism our investment banking chums had for the stock market at the start of the year.

Picking stocks can be an overwhelming affair… there’s just so many ways to skin this cat.

“I don’t like sterling. I’d even sell sterling against sterling!” — David Bloom, HSBC’s chief currency strategist speaking to CNBC on June 16th 2008. Poor old Britain, literally.

It is easy to think about the credit crunch in terms of banks. The banks made these weird structured products, the banks are responsible for the borrowing rate, the banks falling market cap is dragging on the FTSE, etc.

Web-based bookie Sportingbet (LSE: SBT) tickled investors with a third-quarter profit boost driven by active European and Australian gambling markets.

A budget airliner made a profit. I wonder how old I will be the next time I write this?