The earnings season beginning today (Tuesday) is shaping up to be an important one, as it could have a significant impact on a struggling stock market rally.

Investment banks have gotten fat off the land since 1982, when the great U.S. bull market got its start. Their business has multiplied many-fold, and their earnings have soared into the stratosphere, to a level far higher than any other sector.

It wasn’t long ago that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s decision to nationalize state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) resulted in a failed coup that very nearly cost him his post.

Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) yesterday (Thursday) announced it would test-fly its 787 Dreamliner later this year but disappointed customers by delaying delivery of the plane until the fourth quarter of 2010.

Ten More to Be Charged in Madoff Case; British GDP Suffers Highest Drop in Half a Century; Housing Price Drops Slowing; GM Attempts to Emerge From Bankruptcy; Corn & Soybean Planting Up; AIG Gets Government-Backed Board; Japanese Memory Maker Gets Bailout

After an off day on Monday, with the LME closed for holiday, the base metals were mixed on Tuesday. Copper pushed as high as $2.15 early in the pre-dawn hours, but that was it as it sank pretty much straight through the day from there, just coming off its intraday lows to finish at $2.0468/lb., down nearly 4 cents from Friday.

Goldman Raises $5 Billion to Repay TARP; Cost Cutting Will Save Royal Phillips $664 Million; Johnson & Johnson Earnings Saved By Cost Cuts; Singapore Forecasts 6%-9% 2009 Decline; Discover to Cut 500 Jobs; LIBOR Rate Dropping Fast; Coal Prices to Stay Low in 2009; Madoff Firm Files Bankruptcy

Japan’s exports were cut nearly in half last month as the global downturn crushed demand for the country’s electronics and automobiles, a development that increases the odds that the Japanese yen could be poised for a tumble.

U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday (Wednesday) released a proposed housing program designed to prevent up to 9 million “at risk” Americans from losing their homes.