Stocks are stalling. So says today’s Financial Times… “Major equity markets came under pressure yesterday and initial gains for commodities eroded as investors cast doubt over the global economic outlook.”

A way to play the global economy decline is by shorting the airline industry. Here we turn to underground investor Martin Denholm, writing in today’s Smart Profits Report. The problem with the airline industry is that in business terms, it can be “lose-lose,” no matter what the economy is doing…

The brave new world has already arrived in Ireland, where your co-editor is currently based. Ireland exemplifies the boom-bust economics that has shattered the global economy.

A detailed report from the National Association of Business Economics (NABE) says the U.S. economy will recover in the third quarter after a continued contraction in the second.

Is the hoped-for economic rebound merely a mirage? And if it is, how should you play it? For the past few months, optimistic analysts and investors have been scouring the global economy for so-called “green shoots” – a new financial buzzword that refers to any early indicators of a financial recovery.

GM CEO Says Bankruptcy “Probable;” Wal-Mart Posts Flat 1Q Profit; BT Group Cuts Jobs, Dividend; PNC to Sell Stock, Raise Capital; GM, Chrysler Closures to Idle 50,000 Workers; Madoff Trustee to Pay Investors $100 Million; Oil Falls on IEA Forecast

As deep as the U.S. auto industry’s financial crisis seems to be, there may actually be a fairly simple solution. Sell out to China. Nearly a decade ago, I warned that Detroit’s Big Three – General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and Chrysler LLC – had better learn to speak Chinese if they wanted to survive.

Another sure sign that inflation is a clear and present danger is the recent rise in oil prices. Wednesday, crude oil set its 2009 high at $54.83 in New York intraday trading.

Is it the prospect of global recovery or the prospect of inflation that’s driving oil prices higher? Adam Lass says you don’t have to choose – the opportunity for profit is there either way.

Despite the worry of a flu pandemic, a unexpectedly large contraction in US GDP and a recent prediction by the IMF that US banks’ loan losses would top $2.7 trillion, the world, as Justice Litle puts it in Taipan Daily, “is pounding the table for a V-shaped recovery.”