One reason that January is even more important now than ever has to do with the way that the boards of pension funds and endowments -- which control hundreds of billions of investment dollars -- operate. People on these boards are usually not actually experienced investment pros themselves, but rather business people, socialites, union members, political appointments and the like who are subject to a lot of whims and false ideas about the markets.

The fact that small caps are beginning to outperform large caps is a sign of a bigger set of events afoot in the global economy. Large companies are obviously multinationals, while smaller companies tend to focus on domestic U.S. sales. So whenever we see a big disparity in the performance between the two, it's a head's up that investors believe there is an imbalance in the world.

Before the credit crisis worsened, health care reform was one of the primary issues on the presidential campaign trail. Now, it gets barely a mention as other more pressing matters weigh on the country and President-Elect Obama's transition team. Still, by all indications, profound investments in the health care system are on the docket for next year.

President-Elect Barack Obama's transition team publicly discussed a stimulus package costing around $500 billion. More details are beginning to trickle out on exactly which areas of the economy stand to benefit.

Alcoa Corporation (AA) has been among the strongest performers in the recent roller coaster ride of the stock market. Shares have reversed course posting some of the larger gains among Dow components.

The federal unemployment report last Friday was wretched, as you know, but there was more to be gleaned from it after a few days reflection than we could observe right away. Jon Markman takes an in-depth look at the numbers.

With more than 31,000 restaurants in 100 countries, the iconic purveyor of Big Macs and Happy Meals generated more than $22 billion in revenue last year to blow away its competition.

Bears are dominating this fall, but in keeping with my theme this week I have more good news to throw on the positive pile.

We've all heard a ton of bad news lately from the U.S. economy and overseas unrest. But there is plenty of good news to consider as well.

Why would anyone be the slightest bit bullish in this yucky environment? With a nod to a famous luxury liner named after Queen Elizabeth, it's a little something you might call QE 2. The letters stand for "quantitative easing," the strategy now being deployed by the Federal Reserve to attack the credit crisis after everything other tactic has failed.

Stocks swirled early this week within a pleasantly narrow range for once. It was exactly what you would expect on following expiration week and before a holiday -- a lot of drift and light volume. 

Stocks have suffered through an epic November even after the recent surge, and the index roll call this year still has the capacity to shock: The Dow is down 39%, the S&P 500 is down 45%, the Nasdaq is down 48% and the Russell 2000 is down 47%.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly unemployment report came out last week, and as you probably know it wasn't real pretty. How much worse will things get, and how long will it take to get there?

The U.S. economy clearly worsened over the past two weeks, and shows no sign of slowing its downside momentum. Among the data points were terrible retail sales report and outlook from Best Buy (BBY), the bankruptcy of rival Circuit City (CC) and lousy same-store sales reports from JC Penney (JCP), Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) and Pacific Sunwear (PSUN).

Investors find themselves at a familiar crossroad now, though the sky is darkening so it's harder to see the path forward. From a technical point of view, U.S. stocks are clearly near the bottom of their recent range.

Some terrific elements lined up in trading today that actually make me hopeful that U.S. stocks put in a meaningful intermediate-term bottom at last.