If there's one "Trend" that's held its head above water for all of 2008 it's that your liquid long American capitalist has started to wear the pants again. Gone are the investment days of Wall Street’s transparent-less gospels.

Now with 3 of the top 5 investment banks gone, and the other 2 becoming bank holding companies ... that same American capitalist is taking matters into his/her own hands. If you want something done right in this world, do it at the right price, and do it yourself.

This week's MBA mortgage applications index jumped so far off of my page that I had to look at it 3 separate times. Mortgage apps were +11% week over week, which is better than bad but, more importantly, refis surged by 63% week over week!

Your local federal bankers know that they shouldn’t be taking a bonus this year, but your Main Street American capitalist is taking theirs, both at the pump and on their credit line (30 year mortgage rates have dropped to 5.04%!).

US Consumer Discretionary stocks (XLY) continue to trade very well today for a growing list of reasons. We just added the XLY etf to our portfolio. Both gas and stocks are cheap; the stock market is down -41% YTD; 3-mont Treasuries are FREE; and the shorts are in trouble with their consensus short the consumer narrative.
KM

Keith R. McCullough
CEO & Chief Investment Officer