It's October, we can't rally, we are at the lows and the cliff is near. There's nothing more to be said. They passed the housing bill so now we turn our attention to the next set of events. Last week, Europe started to scramble to ensure depositors that those deposits were safe. Today they are running to do so and to shore up a few large financials that are on the edge.

Now that the domino's are starting to fall, they are picking up speed. Add to the Europe woes, another tell this week are the derivatives settlements that start this week as explained here. Beyond that we have earnings starting to flow and that is going to be an eyesore most likely as well.

If the market chooses to jump this week, we will likely see a good chance to finally invest in something for a good bounce trade. Of course, as always, the timing will be everything. If we don't jump, then I suspect we will drift and simply set up the push for later. You can't delay the inevitable and lower prices continue to look inevitable. Down 25%+ on the year is probably not the end of it on this leg lower.

Regional banks have began to show up on some scans and here's one pointed out by a reader on a TA Request. It's got a decent pattern to it but in this market you have to take a good look at your risk/reward parameters before doing much of anything.

NOTE: TA Requests come from readers like you!

So the biggest trade you'll probably see in your lifetime goes down and Paulson and company pull out all stops to scare the senators and representatives into supporting the package that lets him, King Paulson, wield a heavy stick in dealing with this mess that he and his buddies on Wall Street created. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house.

Despite all the turmoil in the markets, there has been one relatively stable trade that keeps popping back up to be shorted again. Due to the continued volatility, it's hard to make any recommendations in this forum anymore unless they are day trades thus, I'll reiterate an earlier trade that continues to make sense ... as long as you trade it.

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A lot of press this morning about coordinated interest rate cuts come Monday. Seems the Europeans have gotten as worried now as the rest of the world that something has to be done and they are supposedly on board for another round of reflation.

Add that to the oversold conditions and the expected passage now of the bailout bill and you've got a market in rally mode ... at least for today.

By my calculation, the S&P is down something like 24% this year while the NASDAQ is down 25%. I can only imagine what folks statements must look like. Assuming slightly worse than average losses added to last year end of year losses, they have had their savings cut in nearly in half. Cut in half!

It's amazing, it's sickening and it may not even be over yet. It's that bad. Now you and I both know that markets don't go down forever, but there nobody ever stands up with the "All Clear" sign when its time to buy either.