Major indices around the world plunged yesterday (Monday), as the credit crisis picked up momentum in Europe and markets in Asia began bracing for a deep recessionary environment in the West.

More dollar strength… Retail Sales surprise… SARB raises rates! Gold on the slippery slope…

When it comes to high-priced oil, Congress just doesn’t get it.

There’s an old Wall Street adage that tells us that “the trend is your friend.” And there’s a witty bit of wisdom we’ve developed here at Money Morning to help guide our readers and us that says: “Go global or go home.”

Looking at the credit data, it seems people have begun to stop paying their bills in order, from most expensive to least. Houses came first – that’s the most expensive bill. Autos came second.

Since the start of the year, the debate over the state of the U.S. economy seems to escalate by the day.

The ongoing subprime mortgage mess, the resultant credit crunch and daily stories about housing defaults, escalating oil prices and lousy corporate earnings only seem to further fuel the debate.

Of course, we all see the government reports and analyst research notes that seem to contradict one another from one day to the next – and sometimes from one hour to the next.

The UK recession will be much worse than most people yet expect, it’s still somewhat controversial to even say that there will be a recession, which means that stocks aren’t yet pricing it in sufficiently.

Q: Even if the U.S. should go into an extended recession and dampen the global markets as well, won’t the emerging markets’ need for oil and other material commodities continue to boost demand and prices? – L.H.

The short sellers appear to be dwindling. This morning the Financial Times reports that global stock markets continued to rally.

The rally comes despite heavy writedowns from Swiss banking giant UBS.

The uncertainty about the markets’ direction reflected the fact that stocks rose after another round of bank writedowns and capital-raisings – developments that might have been expected to send prices lower.