Currency is gaining more and more acceptance as a valid asset class as investors look to diversify out of more traditional holdings, such as stocks, bonds and real estate. As the exchange traded fund market grew, so did the variety of choices available to investors.

The majority of the financial ‘experts' in the world did not see the credit crisis coming, including the Federal Reserve, SEC, numerous Congressional committees with financial and regulatory oversight, and certainly not the heads of the financial institutions that failed or required a federal government orchestrated ‘bailout' to stay in business.

With the sharp sell-off Friday in Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) stock prices, it's good to take a step back and see the effect the sell-off has had on the broader Financial Sector, and perhaps the quickest way to do so is to look at the charts of the AMEX Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE: XLF) to assess key potential support levels and what the chart looks like on both the daily and weekly frame.