In April, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson called the bottom in the financial sector. He said: “I think were closer to the end of the [credit crisis] than we are to the beginning.

“The Rude Awakening’s editorial director Eric Fry thinks Hank was way off the mark. Eric says financial stocks will by a buy one day, but he doesn’t believe we are looking at a bottom now.

In the second part of The End of Peak Greed, Eric says investors are better off putting their money into companies that are making the world go around than betting on financials, which are sending it not a tailspin.

Monsanto Co. (LLY) will pay Monsanto $300 million for Posilac, the brand name for recombinant bovine somatotropin or rBST. The deal includes the global sale rights and a Georgia-based manufacturing plant.

American consumer confidence is edging up, but it is still close to its historic low, according to the ABC News Consumer Comfort Index. Jamie Ellis in Whiskey and Gunpowder says such figures may not be a useful measure. Better look at how consumers act rather than how they say they feel…

China is all the rage for the next few weeks as the Olympics are going on. Many are calling this China’s time to showcase itself to the world. I have a lot of friends and analysts who are big China bulls, believing that the next few years will see continued high growth in China, although less than the above 10% of the past few years.

While researching the coming Rising Tide Letter, I realized there was a new trend brewing. Starbucks already capitalized on it, though the company over-expanded. Let me ask you a question. If somebody led you in blindfolded and then unmasked you, could you tell if you were in a Starbucks (SBUX) or a Benningan’s ?

The price of oil has continued to slide, and is now down over 11% in the past month. This has helped prop the dollar up in spite of a number of poor economic reports here in the United States.

Last week coffee supremo Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) announced it would close 600 stores in the US and slash 12,000 jobs. But Irwin Greenstein still considers the company a good long-term investment. He says lurking behind the grim headlines is an encouraging growth story in emerging markets.

Can it be earnings season already? It sure is, but don’t expect too much. With its report tomorrow (Tuesday), Alcoa Inc. (AA) leads off what is expected to be a pretty dismal series of profit reports.

Editor’s Note: General Motors is back in the 50s, at least in terms of its share price. The Dow Jones is in a bear market. Starbucks is downsizing its US presence. But Justice Litle says contrarian investors shouldn’t fear the doom-and-gloom economic news. There is always a bull market hiding somewhere among the bears. Finding it is what makes a great contrarian investor…

Oil Over $143; GM Falls to 54-year Low; Starbucks Closes 600 Stores; Nikkei Post 10th Straight Loss; United Health Lands in the Emergency Ward; 900 American Flight Attendants on Standby; Blockbuster Abandons Bid; Microsoft at it Again