Stocks down for 7th day straight

Shorts decided to go home before the close, leaving just a few buyers behind. However in the last hour, sellers returned taking the Dow down to a 190 loss (the last trades of the day dragged the Dow down 15 extra points in the loss), with decliners over advancers 2-1 & NAZ dropped 14. In just 3 days, this has already had a very long week, down 1100 so far.

S&P 500 FINANCIALS INDEX was down 6 to 209, at a new multi year low. The Alerian MLP index after being down 25, ended down only 1½ at 175.72. The Dow Jones REIT index was down 1½ to 193. These were up modestly prior to the close, but couldn't hang on to the gains.

Central banks are pulling out all stops, doing what they can to stem the loss of confidence in banking systems around the world. It looks like they have stopped the most serious bleeding, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.

•Fed, ECB, BOE Cut Rates in Unprecedented Response to Combat Credit Freeze
•Ten-Year U.S. Swap Spreads Collapse, May Presage Easing in Credit Pressure
•Paulson Says Regulators Will Use All `Authorities' to Stem Banking Crisis


Gold rose 25 on stock market weakness but oil declined to the lowest level in 10 months:

CLX08.NYM

...Crude Oil Nov 08

...88.95

... 1.11 (1.2%)

Earnings watch is beginning. Earnings and guidance from companies should be the main drivers going forward for the markets. However, the credit mess is just plain overwhelming & probably will be center stage for much of the next few weeks, if not months! I will be off tomorrow, hope everybody is good!