Dow Soars 277

Before I give my picks and talk about what is happening in the financial markets today, let me first say that I am NOT licensed to sell stocks, mutual funds, insurance, etc. All of my picks are my opinions and need to be researched on your own. Today there was a big rally in the stock market and for once there was not the usual sell of that we see, particularly in the financials. Wells Fargo topped analysts estimates on earnings and revenue despite being lower than last year. A bank, imagine that a bank came out and beat estimates while raising their dividend in a time when there are capital struggles and liquidity issues going on. Wells Fargo is one of the banks I consider to be a good bank that can help with the housing crisis by buying bad loans and mortgages from the weaker, regional banks such as Washington Mutual, National City, Wachovia, and Fifth and Third Bank, all of which could fail if conditions were to worsen. I don't think these banks will fail because the government no matter how much they deny it will not let them fail. The recent failure of Indymac Bank is currently being investigated by the FBI as potential fraud and time will tell. They never actually went bankrupt. Instead the FDIC shut down Indymac Bank before they could. I would need to see more gains in the financial sector and for the market to close higher more days like this before I want to race in to buying any stocks right now. I like Jim Cramer's idea about starting a government mortgage agency that would buy the bad loans from the struggling banks while good banks like JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and even investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers buy the good loans from them. Great idea Jim, now how long will it take the government to act on your idea? It was the greatest day in history for the banks from what I heard and please do not panic about your bank. I think they are fine but panic never solved anything