Market Talk

Didn’t today’s trading feel familiar? The steep plunge to a line in the sand, followed by an equally furious rally all the back to the previous day’s closing level? We’ll see what it means, but this week was reminiscent of some of the crazy weeks from back in the panic of ’08. We did into it on today’s News Hub.

On a related note, if you’re in the New York area tonight, I’ll be a guest on the John Batchelor Show on WABC radio at 9:30 p.m. (or thereabouts.)

This story is simply one of the most amazing things I’ve read, maybe ever:

JACMEL, Haiti – Rescue teams found a 15-day-old baby alive in a crumbled house here Tuesday, after she’d spent nearly half her life without food or water amid the ruins of last week’s earthquake.

A search and rescue team was demolishing the remains of the home of the mother, Michelene Joassaint, believing that there was no chance that her baby Elisabeth, eight days old when the quake struck on Jan. 12, could possibly be alive.

The rescue team found the baby in the same bed where she was napping when the earthquake struck. The bed had fallen to the ground floor, but the baby was not even injured.

“It was the mercy of God,” said Ms. Joassaint, 22 years old, breastfeeding her daughter on a makeshift hospital bed next to the heavily damaged city hospital Tuesday evening. Ms. Joassaint was staying in a homeless camp set up on a soccer field when she learned the news. “I cried and then ran to the baby,” she said.

- It’s no coincidence the biggest banks are on pace to pay record bonuses. “How hard is it for any finance firm to make risk free money when they can borrow form the Federal Reserve at zero, and lend that same cash to the Treasury (by buying bonds) at 3%?” Barry Ritholtz ponders.

- Editor & Publisher finds a buyer, although editor Greg Mitchell is out of a job.

- Obama’s bank tax may prevent firms from over-expanding and taking on too much risk yet again. “It will be better than doing nothing at all,” Greg Mankiw says. James Kwak says the tax “isn’t nearly big enough.”

- The bank tax doesn’t create an incentive to lend. Or maybe it doesn’t have any effect on lending.

- Mark Thoma wonders if the bank tax will create a moral hazard problem. “The proposed financial crisis responsibility fee is a good first step, but much more is needed to try to prevent the next crisis, and to reduce the impact if a crisis hits despite our best efforts to prevent it,” he says.

- The market’s reaction to reports from Intel (INTC) and JPMorgan (JPM) suggest earnings season has gotten off to a slow start for stocks.

- Stocks are dropping and the news isn’t half-bad. Chad Brand says the markets have priced in good news.

- WSJ’s coverage of the Haiti earthquake.

- Sprint Nextel (S) and Verizon Wireless respond to surging text-message donations for Haiti victims.

- BofA says late payments on credit-card loans fell to lowest level in about a year.

- Gordon Gekko prepping to make his long-awaited return.

- Obama’s bailout fees on TARP recipients should become a “too-big-to-fail” tax.

- Netflix’s business model transformation continues.

- Recovery won’t happen in a vacuum, bulls, Miller Tabak’s Peter Boockvar says.

- One week later Nexus One is off to a slow start.

- Google’s pride stands out in China’s threats.

- Jamie Dimon previously didn’t even consider a stress test when housing prices fell. Unbelievable.

- More than 100,000 are feared dead after Haiti earthquake.

- Some questions for the banking chiefs.

- Beige book shows modest improvement.

- California’s debt rating cut again.