Happy New Year to our readers!

Happy New Year, everyone!

For those still keeping an eye on the markets on this last trading day of the year, Bear Mountain Bull has today's Market Wrap, as well as a look at the action in the S&P 500 for you.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg summarizes the financial events of 2008 in, "Journal of a Plague Year: Faith in Markets Crack Under Losses".

It seems the scope of economic events (bankruptcies, bailouts, and record-breaking Ponzi schemes) was a bit overwhelming this year, especially given the constant stream of economic cheerleading from media and government/central bank officials ("everything's fine!") during most of 2008.

Now that the tide has gone out, we see who's been swimming naked.

We'll be back on Friday to wrap up 2008 and look to the investment trends and cultural themes for 2009. Until then, please enjoy our most recent posts and have a great New Year's holiday.

Moneyball: How the Red Sox Win Championships

Welcome, readers . T o get the first look at brand new posts (like the following piece) and to receive our exclusive email list updates, please subscribe to the Finance Trends Newsletter . The Boston Red Sox won their fourth World Series title of t he 21st century this we ek. Having won their first Se ries in 86 years back in 200 4, the last decade-plus has marked a very strong return to form for one of baseball's oldest big league clubs. So how did they do it? Quick background: in late 2002, team own er and hedge fund manager, John W. Henry (with his partners ) bought the Boston Red Sox and its historic Fenway Park for a reported sum of $ 695 million. Henry and Co. quickly set out to find their ideal General Manager (GM) to help turn around their newly acquired, ailing ship. This brings us to one of my fav orite scenes from the 2011 film , Moneyball , in which John W. Henry (played by Ar liss Howard) attempts to woo Oakland A's GM Billy Beane (Brad Pi

William O'Neil Interview: How to Buy Winning Stocks

Investor's B usiness Daily founder and veteran stock trader, William O'Neil share d his trading methods and insights on buying winning stocks in an in-depth IBD radio interview. Here are some highlights from William O'Neil's interview with IBD: William O'Neil's interest in the stock market began when he started working as a young adult. "I say many times that I didn't get that much out of college. I didn't have much interest in the stock market until I graduated from college. When I got married, I had to look out into the future and get more serious. The investment world had some appeal and that's when I started studying it. I became a stock broker after I got out of the Air Force." He moved to Los Angeles and started work in a stock broker's office with twenty other guys. When their phone leads from ads didn't pan out, O'Neil would take the leads and drive down to visit the prospective customers in person.

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