“Time to sell oil and buy shares,” pronounces The Sunday Times headline. Merrill Lynch reckons the commodities sector is the most overheated it has been since ‘73. All things farming is trendy too. Fertiliser stocks are the new dotcom and farmers are busy planting all available land.

Spring sunshine may have arrived but the mood is still winter. The Anglo-Saxon consumer is at a low point. In the US consumer confidence is at a 26-year low says Morgan Stanley’s David Darst. And in the UK it hit an all time low point in April says the Nationwide building society.

U.S. Service Sector Shows Signs of Life; Morgan Stanley to Slash More Jobs; Random House to Turn the Page on Chief Executive; Countrywide Rated “Underperform”, Shares Dive; Sprint Nextel Corp. Considering Spinning Off Nextel; Warren Buffett’s Warning; Principal Financial Slumps; Wal-Mart Widens Drug Plan Scope

Seeking to spur the economy to growth, the Fed and the Treasury have been actively devaluing the dollar.

The Cartel showed up on Globex trading shortly after London opened for business. Someone was offering physical in size and they were successful in driving down the gold price below $900 briefly before it recovered somewhat to slightly over $900. Silver had the same chart pattern.

Monetary policy “walking a tightrope”…1,300 jobs go in the Square Mile… Britain’s second largest bank to go cap in hand to shareholders for a large dollop of cash..? Rice hits a record $1,000 a tonne…and one in ten face that old wealth destroyer from the early ‘90s: negative equity. So where to start..?

Not too long ago, some analysts were still claiming that turmoil in the financial markets would have scant impact on the real economy. But the “after-shock” of credit market ructions, as Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley put it, is now clearly kicking in.

“The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them!” The above observation was penned by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and may be very prescient in today’s economic and financial conditions.

Wholesale Prices Soar; U.S. Bancorp Sees Earnings Slide; Johnson & Johnson Enjoys 40% Jump in Profit; China Buys 1% of BP for $1.7 Billion; Brazil’s Retail Sales Hit Four-Year Record; Crocs Stock Drops; Intel Profit Down; Big Loss for WaMu.

Some Wall Streeters are predicting the credit crunch is almost over. If the IMF is right, though, there could be $700 billion more to go. Hope springs eternal on Wall Street.