We don’t have to go back very far to see the classic boom, bubble, and bust play out. In just the last 15 years, we’ve been fortunate enough to watch over-zealous traders lose their heads again and again. First, they bought tech companies for 80 times their earnings in the late ’90s and then happily purchased banks and insurance companies that were leveraged at 35 times their equity. This time, however, we don’t even need the boom or the bubble to see a bust.

When the “Great Crash” came in 1929, it came in October. So, too, did the infamous “Crash of ‘87.” And last year, during a tortuous October that led to even lower lows in the months to come, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 19% of its value in just 30 days.

Liberty Media Corp. (LCAPA) will acquire two board seats and as much as 40% of Sirius XM Radio Inc. (SIRI) in exchange for $530 million in loans.  The deal creates a satellite-media juggernaut combining DirectTV Group Inc. (DTV), the largest satellite-TV provider, and the sole U.S. satellite-radio operator.

Oil prices are down over 60 percent from their peaks just last summer. With the economy crumbling across the globe, most investors think buying an oil company is the same as suicide.

But not Adam Lass, writing for the Taipan Publishing Group. He readily points out that ExxonMobil made $45.2 billion in pure profits last year alone.

For a company producing enormous amounts of cash in a “Cash is king” economy, he recommends you stay long ExxonMobil.

U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers will likely cut its key interest rate to 2.0% from 2.25% this, which would mark the seventh such move since the central bank launched its rate-reduction campaign in mid-September.