Stocks have fallen heavily this week as investors reacted with exasperation and distress to a growing number of signs that the U.S. and global economy are slowing dramatically.

At times like these, sometimes the goal is to just not do anything stupid.

Selling was so hard last week that it's almost inconceivable that there will not be a reaction in the opposite direction this week.

The scale of the declines of late are unprecedented, so we can throw out everything we think about how oversold markets behave. This one is different because the level of leverage that is coming unwound has never been seen in the history of the world.

An ugly end to the third quarter often leads to a nice rebound the next month.

Bill Gross, the bond king who manages a trillion-dollar fixed income portfolio out of offices in Newport Beach, California, made some very interesting comments this week in his monthly report to shareholders, and I'd like to share them with you.

If you're itching to buy stocks into the recent decline, you may get your chance very soon. Through the Tuesday close, the market is as oversold as it ever gets.

When the United States needs money for the bailout, it will almost appear from thin air.

As options volatility makes more and more headlines, could this index-tracking fund make sense?

One unintended consequence of the banking bailout plan may be the catalyst for a "crude" reality none of us want to see.

Irrational behavior by politicians and investors open the door for an options strategy with great profit potential.

The bottom line is that the WaMu deal highlights how fortunate we were to have steered investors like you clear of all financial stocks for most of this year, even when they seemed really cheap. But it also shows that there's a lot of opportunity ahead for the banks I'm now calling "national champions," such as...

Stocks have fallen broadly this month on intensifying credit fears, and now it's getting serious. The broad market is now down 24% for the year and 30% from the last top in October 2007.

Last week you already know that stocks were in bad shape, but you may not have realized that the credit markets were even worse. This is important because this bear began with a worsening of credit in mid 2007, and it will end with an improvement in credit at some point.

Chris Rowe discusses the changes coming with the federal bailout plan and what this means for traders.

Unlike Warren Buffett, most investors don't have $5 billion to bailout the U.S. banking system. But they still have a lot at stake that's riding on the economy, the Federal Reserve and this so-called bailout package. Here are 6 tried and true tips that will help you profit AND protect your wealth in these choppy waters of economic uncertainty.

Clearly the market has decided that, at minimum, throwing another trillion dollars at the banking crisis will be inflationary. You can't float that many bonds and flood the world with new paper and not cause inflation. You can argue whether deflationary forces, such as lower asset prices, will thwart the inflation in the long term, by which I mean a few years. But you can't argue that flooding the market with brand-new money won't cause the value of current money to be debased a lot sooner.

Stocks pulled out of a stunning tailspin last week by mounting a ferocious rally in the last two days that actually occurred faster than it might have seemed.

Clusters of extreme declines have historically often brought bring bear markets to a close. Except when they didn't.