Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times - Under the terms being discussed, JPMorgan would pay $10 a share in stock for Bear, up from its initial offer of $2 a share. Bear Stearns shares were already on the ascent before news of this re-negotiation broke, in hopes of a better deal - Up to $7 and then back down a bit above $5.

You probably have until June before the herd enters the markets enmasse and the stock indexes zoom up into the stratosphere on speculative buying. A few guidelinies for making investments when the markets are scraping the bottom and revving up to make a recovery.

UCFC made a great looking ascending triangle breakout on thursday with volume backed confirmation suggesting a higer probability that this breakout will continue its run from here. We should be able to pull 10%+ on this short term trade with next .............................contd.

Some stocks on my watch list for the week of March 24-29.

“The bear market’s over!”
“We’ve just seen the bottom.”
“The VIX has retreated; therefore, we’ve hit the bottom.”

This is what I’ve seen or heard since Thursday. So have we seen the bottom, waved, and moved on on merry way?

Phew – what a tumultuous week! Once again, the fall-out of the subprime mess had a lot to do with it. For some variety, however, it was not only financials that were in the limelight, but also commodities that corrected sharply.

Diversify Or All Your Eggs In One Basket? Diversification is a rather simple concept that simply refers to the idea of “not putting all your eggs in one basket“. Many beginning investors are often tempted to buy a huge number of shares in a single stock.

You’ve heard the news, gold is the hottest thing since sliced bread… especially in this devastating stock market environment. Gold has historically been one of the best flights to safety for investors in troubled times, and 2008 is no exception.

For the second consecutive week, new stock buybacks were fairly plentiful in number but modest in size. It is bearish that sharply lower stock prices have not triggered a higher volume of buyback announcements.

The acting governor of the Bank of Japan, Masaaki Shirakawa, said on Friday that dealing with global market turmoil was his top priority, but warned those expecting a cut in interest rates that he has no preconceptions on where to take monetary policy.

The biggest commodity collapse in at least five decades may signal Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has revived confidence in U.S. financial firms.

I hope the articles are correct. This is one of the longest merger decisions in HISTORY. Come on Martin, make a damn decision.

If the Social Security Trust Fund were invested in non-government assets, they could simply cash out whenever they wanted to, which would give us another 25 years to solve the problem. If we want to solve this mess anytime soon, the best way to start would be to stop investing social security funds in treasuries and start investing like everyone else.

For months, wary investors bet their fortunes on the metals and raw materials that make up the commodities market, pushing prices for oil and gold into record territory even as stocks languished.

The financial sector led a furious stock-market rally Thursday, with banks and brokerages snapping back from a deep selloff a day earlier, while commodities prices continued a rapid retreat from record levels.