Am buried in meetings and some, ahem, understandable market-related stuff today, so posting may be light, at least until later. My friend Barry over at the Big Picture is posting up a storm, and John at Bronte Capital has some lucid FRE/FNM analysis you really should read.

Here is the market's entertainment so far today, courtesy of Finviz:

I spoke this morning at a SABEW event, a society for business journalists. Lots of subjects discussed, including Freddie/Fannie, journalistic bias, Ben Stein's cluelessness (okay, we didn't get to that one), etc.

In prepping for the talk, however, I was looking at how crummy the media sector has been doing lately. It was driven home by the following chart, comparing the NY Times stock and that of the S&P financials SPDR over the past twelve months. When a sector in utter collapse doesn't underperform the largest media company, something interesting is going on.

A question I keep being asked today: So, this is complex stuff, what does it all mean for the average consumer?

The orthodox thing to do is mutter something about lower rates, making it easier to get loans, etc. The truth, however, is that it means nothing to the average consumer tomorrow -- and that's the problem.

Not because bailing out Fannie/Freddie was supposed to be some panacea that would make rivers run with honey, etc., but because we consumers are bad with things that don't affect us immediately. The trouble with the Freddie/Fannie move is that it is seismic, like tectonic plates shifting, with its impact likely to be felt -- in the dollar, in credit markets, in government spending, etc. -- only over the coming months and years. Most people will have lost interest long before the inevitable impact is felt in rates, the dollar, etc.

A bright spot in my day today was this adventure with UAL wherein it was briefly (and incorrectly) declared dead, only to discover it's not dead yet. The feel-good story of the .... day!

More here.