Strong Dollar, Falling Oil Prices Send Stocks Down; Homebuilders’ Confidence Dips; IMF Improves U.S. Outlook; Obama Tells Doctors Health Care Changes Needed; Six Flags Bankrupt

We’re confused this morning… help us understand this mess.

The housing market disaster is looking like a house of pain these days.

Martin Denholm of the Smart Profits Report shows us where to find the profits in the wreckage.

Last week’s government aid package for homeowners appears to be working. Mortgage rates have fallen sharply, sending applications soaring. Andrew Snyder says this could be the start of a recovery in the real estate market, which would help stabilize the wider economy. This creates a great chance for profits with discounted blue chips like General Electric (NYSE:GE) and Altria (NSYE:MO).

Expect more pain in the housing market next year, says Don Miller. Rising unemployment will keep the foreclosures coming. And as the backlog of inventories swells, Don says homebuilders still look ripe for shorting in this environment.

Gold had a nothing day yesterday, but most of the action it did have occurred on the Comex in New York, where an attempt to break through $740 was once again thwarted. Silver was where all the action was. After a 20 cent sell off on the Comex open, silver jumped up sixty cents from the bottom by lunchtime, but someone was there to put an end to this “irrational exuberance.”

Yesterday’s existing-home sales news was mixed.

Existing-home sales were up 3.1% in July. But the sales rate was still 13.2% below a year ago. Meanwhile, inventories spiked 3.9% from last month to a record 4.67 million homes for sale at the end of July – 11.2 months of supply at the current prices.

The sector’s drubbing could be a great opportunity for value investors. But Ian Davis in The Growth Stock Wire advises investors to hold off on bottom fishing for homebuilders…

Don’t give up on the housing market just yet, says Chris Mayer in The Daily Reckoning. The boom and bust cycle has been going on since long before the latest housing crisis.

It’s over. The bear-market rally of the past two months ended last week.

There’s no denying that US stocks have been rising of late, but is this pick up a genuine bull run or just another bear market rally?

Bloomberg reports that the S&P 500 has climbed 9.8% since reaching a 19-month low on March 10. And some Wall Street analysts, like Lehman Brothers Ian Scott, are predicting that better-than-expected earnings will pave the way for a bigger rally.

Eric Roseman thinks Ian and his Wall Street pals have it dead wrong.