For the first time in a very long time, I'm sitting here in front of a computer screen, and not entirely sure what to say. It's not writer's block. I've always got things to pass along. The question is one of relevance. What's there to say when the whole world's just waiting on Washington D.C. to come up with something at least palatable?

That being said, perhaps the best idea isn't to try and dazzle you with something worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. Perhaps the best idea is just to get you thinking about some of the things I think we should all be talking about, even if the media isn't.

What if there was a law that would separate commercial banking from investment banking, not just in spirit but completely? What if there was a law that prevented banks from underwriting insurance? What if there was a law that prevented a single banking entity from opening branches in more than one state, thus preventing any one bank from becoming a giant potential liability if it failed?

Well, you probably don't need me to tell you that at one point on time these very laws were in place. They've all effectively been repealed or replaced within recent history.

I'm usually not one to jump on the bandwagon and point fingers, but let's call a spade a spade. The Glass-Steagall Act, the Bank Holding Company Act, and a few extensions of both acts really could have staved off much of this mess. They have to be in place to do us any good though.

One of the actions I foresee in the near future is a re-institution of these previously-repealed laws (or at least something like them). It won't solve the problem now - that ship has already sailed. However, as unfair or limiting as those restrictions may be, it still beats the alternative.

To my knowledge, new restrictions are not part of the proposed bailout package. They can and should come later though.

The reason I bring it up? I encourage all of you to keep the pressure on your senators and congressmen. We've got an election taking place in about a month; let 'em know you're not willing to go through this again.

Good News/Bad News

Are you an investor, or a trader? If you're an investor, do you wish you had started accumulating assets and enjoying some compound growth many years ago?

Well, if you are regretting your late start, I have good news for you...you just caught up with people who got started in December of 1998. That's right, the S&P 500 is currently trading right where it was in December of 1998, January of 2002, and February of 2004. During that time we've seen two bull markets, (well, one and a half), and two bear markets, all of which provided great opportunities for gains - bearish and bullish. If you're a buy-and-hold index investor though, well, the bill of goods you were sold in the late 90's hasn't helped one bit.

I'll confess I was one of those brokers in the late 90's preaching the merits of indexing. I'll probably even preach the merits of indexing again - at least for part of your portfolio - to some investors. Part of the reason I got out of the brokerage business, however, was the realization that something like this could happen. Indexing isn't bullet-proof. I was reciting a flawed company philosophy.

Buy-and-hold is officially a dangerous strategy. There's nothing wrong with being willing to buy-and-hold, and there's nothing with actually doing it. My concern was (and is even more so now) that the buy-and-hold crowd didn't fully understand their risk...which is a flat market.

I'm not saying you have to be a pure short-term trader to make money. I do think you have to shed 'passive' investing though, and become an 'active' investor if you want to make any real progress.

We offer online coaching for those of you who now see a reason to become more active in making the market work for you.

Is There Anywhere to Hide?

Just how widespread has the epidemic become? Very, though not completely.

Over the last four weeks, very few groups have managed to make even semi-consistent gains (surprise, surprise). However, in my routine scans of all industries and all market caps, I came across a handful indices that somehow were circumventing the selloff. They are:

- Small cap packaged foods
- Soft drinks (all cap sizes)
- Banks (all cap sizes)

Maybe there's something to them; maybe it's nothing. But, if you're one of those buy-and-holders looking to be a little more pro-active, you might find a golden nugget buried somewhere in there.

Price Headley is the founder and chief analyst of BigTrends.com.