In 1987 when I started as a "retail stock broker" there were hundreds of high quality “investment ideas” to show customers on a daily basis – literally hundreds. There were dozens of AAA rated fixed income products, many quality high yielding stocks, and pages of conservative, safe, AAA rated insured municipal bonds. Oh how things have changed.

The U.S. central bank is meeting Tuesday to consider new ways to battle the worst economic crisis facing the nation since the 1930s.

The government also is releasing a report Tuesday on the U.S. housing market, which is at the heart of the global economic crisis.

Wishful bettors, those who make overly optimistic investments, will ultimately harm themselves financially, but they can harm entire markets as well, new research shows.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down about 90 points at a six-year low as weak economic reports reinforce worries of a long recession. Dow ended the day under 7,500 as the U.S. stocks retreated on bank worries.

The good news is that it seems that the Chinese stimulus is taking some effect on the Chinese economy. Stimulus taking hold in China lifts stocks. Shanghai hits a five-month high. The problem with the Wall Street is that the investors, ahead of the three day weekend need to decide if they want to own stocks or sell them. This morning stocks open lower as financial shares remain under pressure and stimulus plan heads to votes in House and Senate.

The investors did not hear to the economic stimulus plan and Geithner's bank rescue plan. Realizing that the first bailout did not work investors send the stocks down Dow Jones Industrial Average ending the day at three months low. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 382 points, or 4.6 percent, according to early tallies. NASDAQ lost 63 points and S&P lost 42.73 points, losing 4.91 percent of its value.

This week will be fairly light in the number of economic indicator releases, but some of the numbers could be very revealing.

As the USA opens the first trading day of 2009 and the first trading session the stocks are headed higher. However, the reports show that the manufacturing activity declined around the globe and the Euro fell vs. the U.S. dollar and the Japanese Yen. Oil prices dropped as well.

Individual investors are liquidating their holdings at record levels as financial markets sink, often absorbing losses to avoid possibly worse pain later. Contradicting the counsel of many financial advisers, it also flies in the face of widely accepted behavioral theory and reinforces recent research by Michigan State University scientists.

Overnight Libor settled at 6.88% in London and three-month Libor leapt another 20 basis points to 4.05%, indicating continued severe dislocations in the money markets.

Significant bipartisan work has built consensus around dramatic improvements to the original Bush-Paulson plan to stabilize American financial markets—including requiring a plan to ensure the taxpayer is repaid in full.

The buzz last week, of course, had to do with the major steps announced by the president to shore up the markets. The message to both US and world markets was an unequivocal, “we’ll do whatever it takes to stabilize the situation.”