Picking stocks can be an overwhelming affair… there’s just so many ways to skin this cat.

It was the biggest one-day fall since the collapse of Bear Stearns in March. Yesterday the FTSE 100 tumbled 2.6%. It’s hardly surprising. There was a lot of bad news flying about.

High oil prices, a steep drop in consumer confidence, declining home values and a weak dollar conspired to drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its lowest point in two years, and made for the benchmark index’s worst June since the Great Depression.

The Dow lost 4.2% last week and closed at 11,346.51 – its lowest level since September 2006. All totaled, the Dow plunged 9.5% in June – its worst mid-year performance since the 18% drop in the 1930s.

Down 20% from its Oct. 9 high of 14,165, the Dow officially entered into a bear market.

“I don’t like sterling. I’d even sell sterling against sterling!” — David Bloom, HSBC’s chief currency strategist speaking to CNBC on June 16th 2008. Poor old Britain, literally.

Starving for capital and hell-bent on retaining its handsome dividend, Barclays PLC (ADR: pAs much as 1.58 million shares will be sold to existing investors China Investment Bank and Singapore’s stronga href="http://www.temasekholdings.com.sg/" onclick="s_objectID="Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd/a/strongstrong., /strongas well as new investors Japan’s a href="http://finance.google.com/finance?cid=674312" onclick="s_objectID=" finance?cid="674312_1";return">Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., Qatar Investment Authority and Challenger – a fund that represents “the beneficial interests” of Qatar’s royal family.

Total losses from subprime are likely to be near $1trn says the IMF. It’s a trillion…give or take…