bad news, might finally be BAD NEWS

bad news might finally be BAD NEWS: I guess Apple (APPL) was up again because some sharp dressed fellow at JP Morgan (JPM) said that the company plans to launch a cheaper version of the iPhone in the fourth quarter fashioned after the ultra-slim iPod Nano music player. Of course, everyone that just sunk $600 into their “fat version” will gladly switch to something less cumbersome in a matter of a few months. Never mind that Apple failed to even sell-out of its "fat version" like most WS analysts had projected....Earnings Season Arrives!!!... Last night, Alcoa (AA) failed to elicit any excitement with its earnings report, which showed no year-over-year growth. Also, hedge fund in drag, Sears Holdings (SHLD), warned of a nearly 50-percent earnings miss. Ouch. Year-over-year same store sales at both its K-Mart and Sears retail stores were lower, again. But Sears’ warning, really being just a hedge fund in drag, is more of a proxy for the finance-centric economy, Wall Street, and all its catered-to hedge community....Home Depot (HD) also warned of disappointing quarterly results, but played their "massive debt-financed stock buyback" card--again. The stock actually rose modestly on the, wink, wink, don't forget how confident we are in our own depressing business. We're willing to leverage ourselves to the gills to prove it to you..…The Euro broke to a new ALL-TIME high against the "safe haven" U.S. dollar late in the morning. Canada's central bank bumped its benchmark lending rate higher. The dollar don't hunt ..…Finally, the "well contained" subprime problem seems to be crawling out of its container. The two major credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill (MHP), and Moody's Investor Service (MCO), decided to unshackle themselves from its uncompromised Wall Street grip and actually serve the public good by downgrading about $12-billion of subprime morgtage bonds. More worrisome to the "hedged" (that's a laugh) community, S&P made its intentions known that it also plans to examine the credit ratings on the CDOs that contain this debt. This is exactly the news that the folks at Bear Stearns (BSC), et al. did not want to hear. This places Wall Street's "mark-to-model" pricing franchise at great risk. It was no mere coincidence that the lower end of the ABX Index gave-up nearly 12-percent in a matter of minutes once word of this spread. It was also no coincidence that about 5-points were lopped off from shares of Bear Stearns (BSC) and Goldman Sachs (GS)---also un-hedged funds in drag.