Given that the stock market one of the the only place of refuge and is potentially the only place with decent returns over time (given that people still care about that) it will still be a decent investment. That said, volatility is a problem since it is moving based on news that has nothing to do with earnings and speculation. The best thing to own is as the author puts it, companies that did and can generate revenue and saves and grows. Indeed companies benefiting from stimulus and government bailouts will do ok for a while, but these are not what you want to own, just be happy getting out of them at less of a loss.

I think earning from now on will play out negative for most companies per earnings releases so far which are the stronger in a lot of ways than most other companies. Even good news will have the pall of next quarters forecasts baked into them. One can't look at the regular historicals for a good read on this.

Because the money is flowing to the banks that fund big companies to keep them from defaulting. Also, because of if not outright government corruption, an entrenched bias to big business which writes bills and has the administration cater to the wealthy. It is good this is coming to light because something should be done about this. It hurts the free market system and prevents growth and innovation. Sadly this money will go to airlines, cruise ships, fast food chains,and hotels and not to others. Thus small R&D, technology, diverse restaurants, and ways of housing the poor will be overlooked and not funded.

Exxon doesn't have to although I'd be happy if it did to re-establish it's AAA debt rating. The other majors should since they don't have the upstream benefit Exxon gets with lower oil prices and don't need as much oil themselves to process their excesses.

We're just having major volatility here. The big issue remains, wells have to shut down and large oil producing countries must curtail their volumes in order to end this correction driven by fundamental (especially limited storage space).

It sure beats me. I know Exxon has decent infrastructure and some of its own tanks. I think most of the oil industry doesn't plan and lives by the seat of their pants. The US oil reserve is a joke. It contaminates the oil they put in the reserve and probably never expects to use the stuff. It's basically a way to price manipulate oil higher.

Personally I'm not that conservative or old, however, I do know they work by watching over the decades and helping people. Good ones are MCD, TD, XOM (esp. after the sell off), UPS, LIN, etc. There are a lot of people who have lists of these. They aren't a secret although most promote REITs, etc. I think that's because they pay people to promote them off of investors money.

It's nice seeing people looking to grow food in their gardens again. Maybe we'll go back to the times when neighbors gave home grown lemons, oranges, carrots etc to each other. It makes for a better community and often tastes better than grocery food because they are picked when they are actually ripe.

What was their inventory? It needs to be all written down because the cost to make new tires is substantially lower. Likewise demand has dropped as miles driven by cars has dropped dramatically. The share droop in my eyes is rational although the business with survive. It will just need to recuperate.

Stop pumping and build storage structures. Also tell the US to build real storage and stop dumping excess oil back down where it comes from, a deep hole in the ground. They are probably contaminating a lot down there besides contaminating the oil as well with salt.