Nothing on Mark-to-Market?

Unless I missed something, Tim Geithner said nothing about relieving banks of the market-to-market accounting rule which is the key driver behind their balance sheet spirals.

Man, I got suckered on that one. I said on Friday I was personally switching from FAZ (triple-short financial ETF) to FAS (triple long) on the rumor Geithner would be announcing such a change. Didn't happen... should have trusted my own gut instinct, also mentioned in that piece, about Washington managing to screw this one up. Selling that FAS today, losing 3/4 of a point. Oh, well.

This was much more deftly traded by greenfaucet's John C. Lee, who said late yesterday he was booking trading profits in financials. And he warned on the market, too.  You should check out his new blog here if you're not reading it. Good stuff.

Back to today's bank "plan." I thought this new administration was all about "change," but a D.C. talking head tanking the market with a speech is right out of W's playbook!