Market prices should reflect underlying demand and supply. As in a vegetable stand, the prices come from the buying and selling of people in the market.

What will the recovery look like? It’s a question we are not able to answer. We think it won’t be much like the past, though. The political class has abandoned the free market for something else. This didn’t happen overnight. But the process began to accelerate rapidly under the Bush and Obama administrations.

Is the bull back? Not so fast, according to market history.

Most investors want to abandon everything and run for cover thanks to all the bad news, stock collapses and recession. Can it get any worse? Sandy Franks of the Taipan Publishing Group says, “no.” So what do you do with your money now?

The first 100 days of President Barack Obama’s administration officially begin today (Wednesday). But the reality is that President Obama already has a solid head start, as he and his advisor have been working for months to establish the groundwork for one of the most ambitious – and most important – economic-stimulus plans in U.S. history.

Chances are, your portfolio suffered heavy losses last year. But incoming President Obama’s ‘mega fix’ for the US economy could end up costing you even more, says James Dale Davidson.  It’s time to consider your options…

The People’s Bank of China continued nipping away at its one-year lending rate, cutting off 0.27 percentage points to 5.31%, its fifth rate cut in three months.

Seemingly under the radar, China’s Shanghai Composite Index has risen 17.7% since Nov. 1. Specifically – and not coincidentally – the index began its rise Nov. 10, the day after Beijing announced an ambitious economic stimulus plan that will pour $585 billion into housing, water-and-energy projects, airports, disaster relief and railroad construction over the next two years.

A spree of economic props dominoed across Europe today (Thursday) all sharing the same theme – stopping the global financial crisis from getting worse. The European Central Bank took a drastic step to protect the Eurozone economy from shrinking further by lowering its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 2.5%.

If you ever wanted to know how a lame duck President runs out the clock, this week offered you a great example. Now 88 months into his 96-month term, President Bush decided it was time to assign blame for the US’s current economic woes.