More is not always a good thing. The law of marginal utility played out in an odd way on Wall Street as the 4th day of bank earnings that weren’t as bad as expected failed to put any punch into the markets. We’ve seen diminishing returns ever since reports began last week. Huge losses are bad, no matter how you look at it, and the logic that things could have been worse only goes so far.

In the meantime, the energy markets mounted the first serious attempt at a rally today with oil leading the way, up a modest $2.16/bbl at $131 and change. Natural gas was flat as it searches for a bottom to the recent correction.  Drivers for today’s action were Iran and a potential for hurricane formation in the Gulf of Mexico.

In other markets, US Treasuries were essentially flat, as was the US Dollar as traders appear to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Questions that remain unanswered as of today include:

1) How much money will be required to bail out Fannie/Freddie? Secy Paulson wouldn’t say, opting to ask for a blank check. His new book “How to inspire confidence” is due out any day now.

2) Where will aforementioned money come from?  This has huge implications for TIC, interest rates, and the Dollar moving forward. Secy Paulson had no specific comments when asked about this minor detail.

All in all, nothing has changed; listen to our Internet radio show from last night where we discussed this in greater detail. A link to the show is below:

Get it Here

Also, we have redesigned our charts page at the My Two Cents website and now feature 24hgold.com Flash charts for energy, precious metals and currencies – check them out today!