TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says China and the fund managers have a huge influence on price action.

We got Japanese steel price increases last night to stay in line with the recent American price increases. We have copper at a multiple-month high and looking like it will go higher.

Do you know what the common denominator of those two prices increases is?

Little to no demand outside of China. That's right, steel capacity is running about 40% worldwide. There's been no increase in copper capacity because there is no real demand. Both steel and copper companies are citing raw costs -- iron for steel and energy for copper -- as reasons they "have to" raise prices, even though Richard Adkerson, the CEO of Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) (Cramer's Take) admitted yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg that there isn't any "real" demand outside of China.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says we should closely monitor the situation as more banks raise capital with equity.

What really did happen Friday? I keep thinking about this because, surely, if you saw how well the Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) (Cramer's Take) deals behaved, didn't you, as a bank player, have to presume that there would be and will be more offerings?

If Wells Fargo went up 6, isn't it reasonable to presume that Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK) (Cramer's Take), KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) (Cramer's Take), Capital One (NYSE: COF) (Cramer's Take), BB&T (NYSE: BBT) (Cramer's Take) and no doubt all of the others, would do the same? Who wouldn't take advantage of this? Fifth Third (NASDAQ: FITB) (Cramer's Take)? Suntrust (NYSE: STI) (Cramer's Take)?

Why did they rally so much?

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) shares rose even though it reported a wider loss for the quarter.
• American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) posted better-than-expected Q1 results but warned of challenges.
• Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) reported a net loss and slumping revenues for the first quarter.
• Center Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: CLFC) was downgraded following its Q1 earnings report.
• Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) posted lower Q3 earnings that still topped analysts estimates.

Investor and trader Mishko Janusevich had a mantra that he used to repeat while outlining the top, new stock shorts that appeared that day, as determined by technical indicators.

He would stand next to the overhead projected stock chart at the front of the trading room and recite, "You see this stock? You see that it's dropped $8 in past two days? You think it can't drop any more? SELL THAT STOCK it's dropping more!!!"

Short these shares if you can tolerate high-risk and are an experienced investor that does not remove Buy/Stop Losses:

Casino operator Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) announced that first-quarter adjusted profit totaled a penny per share, thanks to cost reductions and more Macau visitors. These results excluded some items, and topped the consensus estimate for a loss of roughly 2.5 cents per share.

LVS announced that its "fundamentals are getting better," with improving gaming revenue and tourism classified as "OK." The company also hopes that some visa restrictions may be removed, which could help its efforts to start a rally.

LVS has lowered its worker hours and cut jobs in order to cut costs and avoid potential defaults. The company also stopped a condominium development in Vegas and halted construction in Macau to help withstand the recession.

Ben Bernanke tried to talk up the markets today in light of reports that ten of nineteen banks under the stress test needed capital. Bernanke said that a recovery does lie ahead and that housing is near a bottom. At the end of the day, it was hard to get any feeling for gains or profit taking.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,410.65 -16.09 (-0.19%)
S&P 500 903.80 -3.44 (-0.38%)
Nasdaq 1,754.12 -9.44 (-0.54%)

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Today's lack of a rally came with little surprise. The massive gains yesterday were reminders of the panic buying seen in the past. Profit takers used the strength to unload on the new buyers who chased stocks yesterday.

Confusing housing data caused another brief hope because of an uptick, but that was following a downward revision. The Geithner-Bernanke testimony to Congress today did very little for the markets. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 7,660.37 -115.49 (-1.49%)
S&P 500 806.37 -16.55 (-2.01%)
Nasdaq 1,518.70 -37.07 (-2.38%)

Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says companies saddled with high debt loads can be found in every sector in every business.

Overleveraged. Too much debt. Need to pay down debt. How many times have you read that story?

You read it so much because it plays out every day and plays havoc with stock picking almost every time you see a savory stock down on its luck.

This weekend, as I went through the charts, I was amazed at how low some stocks have gone, stocks that I would normally say to just take a flyer on, but turn out to have so much debt, short- and long-term, that they are just too dangerous.

Consider these perhaps poisonous morsels:

Today was a quiet day of selling despite the return of most traders to Wall Street. It seems that everyone was trying to get their bearings back more than they were willing to take any major bets on the "real" first day back for 2009. That also took back part of Friday's gains.

A $300 billion tax stimulus plan from President-elect Obama camp may have been trumped by more weak and bleak data, as well as by a $2.00 rise in oil. His comments of "Things are getting worse..." may have trumped any positives today, and auto sales data just echoed those thoughts.

Here are the closing bell levels:
Top Analyst Calls

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) was almost a winner today. Its shares were upgraded to Overweight at JPMorgan on valuations and dominance of its online shopping empire.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) came out today to say that Steve Jobs' weight loss was tied to hormonal imbalances rather than to any resurgence of cancer. The company's notes to fight any pre-Macworld speculation paid off with shares up over 4% at $94.25 shortly before the close.

This post is part of our feature on Money Losers of 2008. See all 20.

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson's fortune has fallen $24 billion since the beginning of 2008 as shares of his Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) have dropped 95% during the year as cost-conscious consumers stay away from luxury casinos. (His fortune has dropped even further over the past two months.)

Adelson is a colorful character, who was a consulting client of mine in the 1980s. A brash guy from the streets of Dorchester -- a tough section of Boston -- Adelson first hit it big by creating Las Vegas-based COMDEX -- what was the biggest high-tech trade show around through much of the 1980s and 1990s.

Even though COMDEX faded from prominence since then, Adelson fell in love with Las Vegas and borrowed heavily to get into the casino business. Now his company holds $10.2 billion of debt on a $2.2 billion sliver of equity, and it lost $52 million over the first nine months of the year.

With the economy tanking and credit markets skittish, it could be hard for Adelson to recover. But he's been in tougher scrapes before.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. Portfolio will publish his book about Boeing, You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing, on December 26, 2008. He has no financial interest in Las Vegas Sands securities.

Be sure to check out more Money Losers of 2008.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that CIT's approval as a bank holding company means anyone with a lending business can make it.

CIT Group (NYSE:CIT) made it to the finish line. They became a bank. After a sickening and seemingly endless slide for this lender, to $4 from $30, the whole way down with nothing but rosy projections, the company made it to bank holding company status and now it will be able to survive. Who knows, the company might even thrive, which makes that last stock offering seem pretty delectable.

The issue for me now is you are nothing if you are not a bank. You can see the ramifications of making this reckless lender -- it can say otherwise, but aren't we tired of all the say "otherwises" at this point; it's just better to admit it -- a bank. It means that anyone, no matter how profligate, no matter how wasted, can make it, if it has some sort of lending business.

I ask, why? What is the government's interest in saving Citigroup (NYSE: C)? Why bother? Should we look for other companies that lend and give them protection?

How about Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) )? When you go there you can borrow money. Prime candidate for it, I believe.

I know I was thrilled when all of those life insurers got around the law by buying little banks. That was good judgment in action.

The real worry, of course, is that without bank status, like the status of the utilities, how can you finance your way through this period? Can we make troubled retailers banks? If someone has a retail charge card, like Macy's (NYSE: M) ), isn't that the same as American Express (NYSE:AXP). Tons of retailers have charge cards and they are all candidates for bank status as they get in trouble. Neiman Marcus should have bank status.

Where to Invest in 2009: Safe Harbors
The good news for investors is that some of these defensive investments are selling at their lowest valuations in years--and paying decent dividends. Among the picks include Duke Energy, Southern Co., Microsoft and Johnson and Johnson.
http://www.smartmoney.com/Investing/Stocks/Where-to-Invest-2009-Safer-Harbors/

My Facebook Becoming My Therapist During Recession
In a time of growing unemployment, tumbling stocks, and rising foreclosures, people are finding comfort on social networking sites.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2008/tc20081216_649709.htm?campaign_id=twxa

This post is part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst in Money 2008 feature.

In 2008, many big names took big face plants. Since this is a blog about money, I ranked them based on how much they lost and how far they fell. As you can see, the method is not exactly scientific. Here are the five biggest falls from grace:

1. Richard Fuld, Lehman Brothers. The $639 billion bankruptcy is history's largest so far by a factor of at least six. And Fuld personally lost about $1 billion in his personal holdings of Lehman stock. And the repercussions of letting Lehman fail stretched from money market funds to Iceland. Ouch!
2. Jimmy Cayne, Bear Stearns CEO. Cayne lost plenty of his personal wealth when Bear Stearns stock stumbled. But at least shareholders were able to get out with something when JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) bought it.
3. Eliot Spitzer, New York governor. Spitzer destroyed his once promising political career by spending time with at least one woman other than his wife. He was trying to use his prosecution of Wall Street to boost his political career as Rudy Giuliani did. But his self-destructive urges got the better of him.
4. Sheldon Adelson, CEO, Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS). Adelson, a colorful character who was a consulting client of mine, has lost $30 billion on paper thanks to his excessive debt load and a decline in gambling.
5. Jerry Yang, CEO, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO). Poor Jerry Yang suffered from delusions about his ability to revive his creation. He lost a chance to boost shareholder returns by selling to Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) for $31 a share. With the stock at $11.51, he left big bucks on the table, and the board kicked him out of the big chair.

Let us know which one you would chose as the biggest fall of 2008.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

Share the reasons for your Biggest Fall from Grace pick in the comments, or let us know about any contenders we overlooked. Also be sure to see the rest of the Best & Worst in Money 2008.

As we begin the trek to grandmother's house, it's worth reflecting on what we have to be thankful for. The answer? When it comes to money, most of us have a lot less than we did a year ago. But for those of you who have your health and your families to comfort you, it will cost much less to buy the gasoline to visit than it would have in July. And as you're driving to visit those families -- consider how much less you lost in the last year than the world's 10 biggest losers.

According to the web site, The Business Sheet, those unfortunate people suffered a mind-boggling $176 billion in lost stock market value in the last 12 months. It turns out that 52% of the losses were suffered by three executives based in India. Here they are:

• Anil Ambani - $32.5 billion. Ambani heads Reliance Communications that invested $500 million in Dreamworks earlier this year.
• Lakshmi Mittal - $30.5 billion. Mittal heads ArcelorMittal which has suffered from a decline in the price of steel.
• Mukesh Ambani -$28.2 billion is Anil's brother and controls Reliance Industries, a petrochemical manufacturer.

These are some other folks that make The Business Sheet's list:

• Sheldon Adelson -$30 billion. I did consulting work for Adelson about 22 years ago and he is quite a character. His Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) casino is suffering from the economic slowdown and he's had some trouble with debt.
• Warren Buffett -$13.6 billion. As I posted, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) has had some problems this year.

Analyst upgrades:

• Roth Capital upgraded Charlotte Russe (NASDAQ: CHIC) to Hold from Sell. The firm is positive on management's strategy to drive improved operating performance and is encouraged by the company's longer-term growth prospects.
  
• Banc of America upgraded shares of Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) to Neutral from Sell following the company's capital raise as they see a more balanced risk/reward at current levels. The firm lowered their target to $5 from $12.
  
• Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
  
• Credit Suisse upgraded Ameriprise (NYSE: AMP) to Outperform from Neutral.
  
• Bob Evans (NASDAQ: BOBE) was upgraded to Hold from Underweight at KeyBanc.
• J. Sainsbury (OTC: JSAIY) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at ING and to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan after the company topped earnings expectations.

Analyst downgrades:

• JP Morgan downgraded General Motors (NYSE: GM) to Neutral from Overweight citing the "ambiguity of government aid structure" and the likely dilution to equity. The analyst said GM needs money now to get past December 2008 and will need at least $15B to get through 2009, with the total bailout potentially reaching $30B.
  
• Goldman downgraded Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) to Sell from Neutral and added shares to the Conviction Sell List.
  
• J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) was lowered to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.