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NEW YORK, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Six years of accumulated wealth in U.S. stock markets vanished in 2008 as a sustained bull market turned bearish and violent, records show.

By MARTIN SIEFF WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- The much criticized -- and usually with good reason -- U.S. news media missed or underreported a lot of big stories in 2008. Half the stories that UPI lists as the most neglected or "lost" of 2008 were in Latin America and Africa -- entire continents that have dropped off the map as far as the national U.S. media are concerned.

By MARTIN SIEFF WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George W. Bush remains convinced history will judge him less harshly than most of the American people now do in poll after poll.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- U.S. Treasury debt with zero and negative yields is finding buyers -- a tangible measure of the current level of discomfort with corporate equity stocks.

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said Monday that it will provide $5 billion to GMAC Financial Services LLC, the ailing financing arm of General Motors Corp., from the $700 billion bank rescue program.(The Huffington Post)

GMAC will also potentially receive up…

Filed under: Rants and raves, Citigroup Inc. (C), Merrill Lynch (MER), Wachovia Corp (WB), Washington Mutual (WM), Chasing Value, Lehman Br Holdings (LEH), Federal Reserve, Newcastle Investment (NCT), Recession, MBIA Inc (MBI), Gramercy Capital (GKK), E*TRADE (ETFC), East West Bancorp (EWBC)

Trillions of dollars have been introduced into the world economy since last July, when I thought it would be interesting to jump in and pick stocks prior to the carnage in the financial sector taking complete hold.

For the past eight months our government has been taking over financial institutions, absorbing debt, lowering interest rates, nationalizing some private companies, investing in others, and rebating taxes through stimulus packages to increase liquidity and spending. The Federal Reserve has essentially dropped the interest to zero.

The government was the last to announce that we are in a recession. Well, duh! However, recession or not the world is still open for business although less of it. Gold is down 30% from it's highs and oil having totally collapsed from $147 a barrel at the time of the original story to the low $30's now.

The original story was Serious Money: Tempting fate with 10 financials -- buying into a pool of financial stocks at a time when these stocks went unloved by all.

Eight of the ten financial stocks I wrote about are down or out at this point. When I last reported, the portfolio was losing 47% but it has sunk to new lows now standing at a loss of 58.56%. This compares to a drop in the S&P 500 of 29% or half the loss.

There are many analysts suggesting that we finally have arrived at the time to invest in financial stocks. Perhaps that is true, but do you invest in the downtrodden or the blue chips?

Continue reading Chasing Value: reviewing financial ruins MBI, MER, WB, WM

Chasing Value: reviewing financial ruins MBI, MER, WB, WM originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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