It is baffling to watch the market be up 300+ points on Friday on the news that the bail out plan was likely to pass and then see the market close down on 150 points on what most considered good news.

Monday and Tuesday saw two consecutive days of a significant drop.

Today, The Fed reduced its key rate from 2 percent to 1.5 percent. And the market still reacts negatively.

Next week we will see the first of quarterly corporate earning numbers released. We will get a better sense of how the overall economy is doing.

We expect that we will continue to see a lot of volatility in the marketplace. Much of that is due to all the noise. That noise makes it hard to concentrate. Our society has 24/7 access to information via TV, radio, the Internet, PDAs and Black Berry's. It is often overwhelming. There is so much information thrown at us it is near impossible to makes sense of it.

We know these are scary times. We still recommend staying the course. We continue to stay focused on the long-term while monitoring the short-term landscape. The market got decimated in the October 1987 crash, but it ended up for the year. Times will get better.

Since 1948, there have been 12 bear markets that lasted an average of 14 months and saw an average decline of 22.4% in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index. After each of those, economic conditions improved with 12 bull market occurrences lasting an average of 45 months and seeing an average 123.9% gain in the S&P 500. Investors who held on to investments during each of those instances made gains in the long run. (Source: Putnam Investments)

Please advise us promptly if there are ever any changes in your financial situation or investment objectives. Feel free to give us a call if you want to discuss anything further.