Despite a rough two-week patch, Wall Street is feeling bullish, too. In fact, according to Barron's, there is not a single Wall Street strategist that is not bullish. Talk about the herd mentality; look at the estimates for the S&P 500, S&P Earnings, and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Growth. The eyes of most needles have wider spaces... these guys and women are on the same page.

For the record, I think the Federated strategist is probably going to be the closest -I'm at 2380- after a year that sees an increased capex spending, higher wages, and the benefits of stable fuel prices.

Oil Impact & Contagion

With oil down 50% in a flash, it is easy to say in hindsight that it was in a bubble all that time; how can any bubble burst and not have any implications throughout the investing world? What if there are “Good” and “Bad” bubbles?

Banks with the greatest exposure to energy loans as a percentage of total assets have taken it on the chin big time since November 10^th.

However, it looks like the bank stocks that were hit the hardest are those where energy loans are 3% of total assets or greater. Many of these are regional hot spots and until a few weeks ago, they were riding a heck of a wave... now they are drowning.

We are working on a breakdown of the energy patch for those names that should be bought first when crude hits a bottom -or appears to be hitting a bottom. In fact, it may drift for some time and it could be acceptable, but the wild gyrations are adding excessive pressure on producers and on all names in the food chain.

Today’s Session

Obviously, we aren't going to force the issue here this morning. With the ruble crashing, many are now wondering about a possible contagion effect. There's also concern about what a desperate Vladimir Putin might do with his world collapsing. (The huge interest rate increase in Russia was a rare sign of Putin Panic and made things worse.) In the meantime, crude keeps crashing- now on auto-pilot, so while overdone, it’s not done at all.