Since I first scraped my knee chasing the neighbor’s cat across the street dozens of years ago, I have been a fan of the get-it-over-fast strategy. Rip the stitches, dry the tears and move on. Dilly-dallying is for sissies and I’m no sissy.

But the nitwits in Washington beg to differ.

After the first round of trillion-dollar stimulus failed to ignite anything but tempers, Congress is hitting us with a slow, but steady stream of economy-boosting spending. They won’t call it a bailout or stimulus, those terms have been politically wasted, but they continue to pour money into the economy like its water on a broiling fire.

They are pulling the Band-Aid off one painful follicle at a time. And I’m getting sick of it.

We’ve got homebuyer incentives. Business loans. Green tax incentives. Car interest deductions. And now more deadbeat homeowners are getting off easy as Obama takes more money from my wallet and gives it to some McMansion owner.

All this hoopla in Dubai proves the point the markets have no clue as to proper valuations. Given just one minor hiccup in the global economy, Wall Street was poised to sell off like never before. The over-leveraged, over-hyped Dubai World comes to the world on Friday and asks for a delay in paying its $60 billion obligations and pundits react like Iran launched “the bomb.”

Come on folks. Dubai’s financial situation is little removed from Donald Trump’s recent woes, including the funky head piece. That much leverage and something will eventually snap.

Even with this notion, the markets were ready to succumb with just one headline.

“Give me just one reason,” you could hear the investors muttering as their nervous finger hovered over the sell button. In the back of their mind, every investor is nervously awaiting the one final catalyst that sends this top-heavy market back where it belongs.

The words “double-dip recession” are on the tip of everyone’s tongue, even Obama’s, but nobody is ready, or politically willing, to call a spade a spade. They’d rather leave the Band-Aid in place for just one more day.

Instead, we are going to sit back, watch unemployment remain over 10% for the next eighteen months and let our government get away with murder. Just like G.W. used 9/11 as a springboard for his defense initiatives, this administration is using a nasty economy as an excuse to move us one mandate away from socialism.

And we are taking it. We are taking it like a herd of cattle take an invitation to a feed lot. This is not a free lunch, folks. Someday soon we’re going to get slaughtered.

*** Investors had better be prepared for what lies ahead. The swift reaction after the news from Dubai proves the markets are uncertain.

Uncertainty creates problems.

If I had to pick just one sector of the economy to be the model of uncertainty, it would be consumer spending. With Black Friday data looking lackluster at best, retailers have little idea what to expect going forward.

Instead of watching the six o’clock news for a hyped up version of the antics at the local mall, I fired up Ole Betsy and drove to a friend’s local shop. What I saw was far different than the frenzied lines at the local Best Buy.

Sure, there were sale signs everywhere, but two customers hardly form a line worth photographing.

When I asked how many of the big sale items were pulled off the shelf, the answer was a big fat goose egg. The big names may draw a crowd, but with razor thin margins they need crowds. To get a scaled-down view, take a look at the little guy.

That scene isn’t pretty.

But there is good news today. Early reports show that Cyber Monday traffic is up by more than 40%. While clicks don’t equal sales, buyers are at least scoping the deals.

That is good news for the online world and is part of the reason shares of Amazon hit new record prices this morning.

Before Jeff Bezos and his troops were celebrating, I was writing a piece for TFN that highlighted a company that will likely be a winner as cash-strapped consumers search out the best deals.

Here is a bit of what I wrote:

“One stock all traders should be aware of on this so-called “Cyber Monday” is ValueVision  Media (NASDAQ:VVTV), the home of ShopNBC.

“As consumers cut back this holiday season, shoppers will diligently search for the best deals. One place they will find them is on the company’s home-shopping network and the ShopNBC web site.

“I have tracked ValueVision for numerous holiday seasons. It is a predictable, cyclical play with the holiday season the catalyst for strong swings in either direction.

“Historically, buyers that got in before the holiday season and got out early in the New Year made sizeable and reliable gains. But predictability kills Wall Street.

“Over the past several years, buyers that got in on December 1 and out on January 1 lost money. That’s because after years of predictable gains, the bandwagon become overloaded.

“But this year I am expecting another turnaround in the trend. We’re back to buy now and sell in January. You won’t get rich from the play (20% upside), but you will find a way to eliminate most market volatility and put weaker consumer spending on your side.

“ValueVision is a small, $107 million company. It has no long-term debt and is poised to rebound to positive cash flow this quarter.

“The real kicker to this stock, however, is its high beta score.” Keep reading here.

*** And now for a new feature this week. Over the past month (it’s been thirty days now since I took the helm), I noticed that Notes readers are incredibly unique. They don’t follow the herd. They think for themselves. And they have interesting insights.

My kind of people. I like it.

That’s why each week, I am going to toss out a “question of the week.” I trust I won’t even have to ask for your thoughts on the subject. Let me have it and we’ll discuss the varying opinions as the week goes by.

This week’s question: Is it a coincidence the weekly political roundtable programs air at the same time churches offer their weekly services?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Of course, we’ve been here before. Or as Yogi Berra liked to say, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

Recall, back in November of 2008 the markets began an impressive run-up, hitting the 20% milestone, too. Then all hell broke loose.

As a result, not every market observer, myself included, is completely convinced by the recent move. But I will say this – seven notable differences exist between then and now, leading me to believe this very well could be the start of a new bull market.

• There’s hope for housing.

On Tuesday CNBC did a feature story on home sales in foreclosure central – California. In one suburb outside Stockton, where one out of every 67 homeowners received a foreclosure notice last month, new home inventories miraculously plummeted from 130 to just 17. One builder went from four sales in five months to nine sales in one month. Tax incentives definitely played a rule. Nevertheless, the trend jives with the latest overall market data.

Recall, new homes sales jumped an unexpected 4.7% in February. It also lends credence to newsletter guru Dennis Gartman’s latest prognostication that “we’re going to have a shortage of housing in the not too distant future.”

Another positive – lumber prices, a leading indicator for the housing market, rebounded roughly 30% in the last three weeks. (The housing market accounts for two thirds of lumber consumption.) Add it all up, and this data is hardly overwhelming. But it’s certainly less bad (see # 3 below to understand why).

• Takeover rumors are moving stocks again.

In a clear sign of optimism and normalcy, takeover rumors are once again returning to the market. And, more importantly, they’re moving stocks and spurning heavy call options buying. For proof, look at the recent moves in Black & Decker (NYSE: BDK), Textron (NYSE: TXT), Allergan (NYSE: AGN) and Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN), to name a few.

• From bad to less bad.

Home sales. Durable goods orders. The ISM Manufacturing Index. These are just a handful of the economic data points that have gone from bad to less bad in recent weeks. At the same time, financial companies are beginning to wean themselves off of their government handout dependency.

Five banks announced they returned money given to them under the TARP program. And the TED Spread – a key indicator of perceived credit risk in the economy – is back below 100 basis points (bps) after peaking last October at 464 bps. (Keep in mind, the historical average TED spread is 30 basis points, so there’s still a ways to go.)

• No halitosis.

The November rally that faltered was led by defensive stocks and lacked breadth. In other words, a large portion of the market did not come along for the ride. However, this go-round we’re witnessing widespread strength, particularly in financials, commodity related companies and semiconductors, suggesting the move is sustainable.

• Volatility is dropping.

Right about the time we accepted one-hour 400 point swings as normal, their prevalence dropped off considerably. Look no further than the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX). After peaking at 89.53 last October, it’s back down to more reasonable level around 40. More simply put, the expected market vulatility has been cut in half.

• The market’s always out front.

Countless studies prove the market is the best leading indicator, rallying three to seven months before the economy bottoms. That doesn’t mean we’re immune to head fakes. The classic example comes from the last “severe” recession from 1973 to 1975, when stocks rallied in early 1974, only to stumble again.

But talk about history repeating itself. We experienced the same false rally late last year.

Just like in 1975, when the Dow rallied 36.2% in the three months before the recession finally ended, the recent market move could be the real deal, too.

• Bears out proselytizing bullishness.

In a clear sign of a market bottom, the most bearish investors in recent times found, well, bullishness. This includes Jeremy Grantham, who hated stocks for the past decade; Bill Fleckenstein, who shut down his 13-year-uld bearish fund to go long stocks; Steve Leuthuld, whose Grizzly Short Fund rose 74% in 2008; and Whitney Tilson, another one of the most bearish fund managers in recent years.

Don’t be quick to discard their change of heart and bullish comments as mere bloviations. These guys are the real deal, having predicted the downturn well in advance… and profited from it handsomely.

If this bull market is legit, I’ve already tuld you which small cap companies will perform best here and here.

Turns out they’re already leading the charge, outpacing large caps by a full six percentage points since the March 9 lows, based on the Russell indices.

If you haven’t positioned your portfulio accordingly, take heed. This could be your last chance.

Source: Wall Street’s New Bull Market: 7 Signs the Bear is Dead…