Spitzer at al

What I find funny about my Governor getting caught is not that he knocked himself off his high and mighty ethics pedestal but rather how the media tried to tie it to the stock market. One trader, when asked if it mattered said rather bluntly, "no." It's a side show.

So is the election at this point. Are investors really thinking about how health care will change if a dem is elected or how defense issues will change with an elephant? Nope. What people are thinking about is how to get the hell out of the market whole.

I love when a pundit comes on to tell me how cheap Merrill Lynch or Bank of America is today and that the stock market will bounce back. Where these mentally challenged but entirely overpaid experts around in 2000? How about 2001? or even 2002? That's a long time to be long and wrong.

Yeah, the market will one day be higher than it ever was but I don't want to lose my house while I wait. A retiree asked me with panic in his voice about saving his nest egg. "I don't care about making money," he said. I just don't want to lose any more!

Well, that is a pretty smart thing to say. Not the panic part but the capital preservation part. My advice is to live it. (Disclaimer - blah blah, I am not a registered investment adviser, blah blah, so check with your own adviser before buying or selling anything.) I have been working a client account from stocks to cash in increments and hedging with double short in case I cannot get him into 50% cash in time.

Bring on that next Fed rate cut. Make it a surprise, even! Make it a full 100, while we're at it. It will be just what the doctor ordered to let my client sell out all the stuff I told him to sell in mid-January before the final death spiral began. After that, the Fed will be out of ammo and oil will still be on its way to 115 - first stop.