Events are unfolding or unraveling so quickly that even the morning’s newspapers are largely outdated by the time I sit down at my desk. Given that, the period between Election Day, the first Tuesday of November, and January 20^th, Inauguration Day, worries me. The typical presidential transition requires eleven weeks. That feels like a lifetime given today’s rapidly changing financial crisis.

President Bush must be concerned as well since last week he signed a new executive order detailing how his administration will handle the up-coming transition. Similar executive orders have been signed by past Lame Duck administrations but normally not until after Election Day. Both candidates’ transition teams are working to get up to speed on everything from absorbing existing policies in dozens of areas, the free-fall in the financial markets and the handling of two very active war zones.

We have reached at least an interim bottom in the markets. I would call it "The Bottom" once the S&P 500 moves above the 1325 level. That's not to say there won't be a pull back. After an upside move like we've had over last Thursday and Friday, the markets will likely consolidate. I would buy that and any subsequent dips.

All the variables that I normally look for in identifying a bottom—volume, panic, pessimism, new lows, and market breadth-- were satisfied over the course of the market's downturn last week. However, it is the rescue plan that is now being drafted by the federal government that has tipped me over to the side of the bulls. Up until now, the Fed and Treasury have been acting like two fire fighters working furiously to save three or four trees while the forest around them was burning to the ground. Now they're calling in air support.

This week’s turmoil in the world’s stock markets has investors in a panic. On the surface it appears as if we are in the midst of a financial meltdown. In less than a week the financial landscape of America has changed more than it has in years.

Pillars of finance like Lehman Brothers (LEH), Merrill Lynch (MER), AIG Insurance (AIG), and Morgan Stanley (MS) have gone bankrupt, been acquired or bailed out and the week is not over. Yet, nothing I’ve seen thus far indicates to me that we are in anything more than the last stages of a global stock market correction. “But this time it’s different,” protested a client on her cell phone yesterday, “even money markets are going under.”