Higher fuel prices and slipping demand for air travel have prompted a change. The International Air Transport Association revised its forecast of global airline losses for the year from $9 billion to $11 billion. Revenues for the air travel industry are expected to fall 15% to $455 billion worldwide. Passenger traffic is anticipated to fall by 4%, with cargo dropping 14% for the year.

Financially, IATA CEO Giovanni Bisignani says the impact of the financial crisis has been more severe than the terror attacks of eight years ago.

Under the radar: Some trends are obvious enough and visible to all investors. Others are more-subtle, but are just as potent, and these often slip 'under the radar.'

Case in point: German manufacturing orders, which jumped the most in almost two years in May -- rising 4.4%, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday. That's the indicator's largest increase since June 2007, and nine times the Bloomberg News consensus estimate.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says a data point out of Germany gives him cause for hope.

I have seen the future, and it is German manufacturing orders! We are always looking for totems when we are teetering on the second dip, and a number that came out today from Germany showing a 4.4% increase in May manufacturing orders -- the best in two years -- ignited the European markets and should do the same for ours.

It's been no secret that our economy's doing nothing while the Chinese economy does all the heavy lifting. But what happens if Europe, which is supposed to be so, so sick, gets better? I don't know a soul who believes that Europe isn't worse than the U.S., with their banks being in far worse shape and their governments showing no signs of being worried about anything but Weimar.

There is an index called the Markit iTraxx Crossover Index that measures the cost of protection against junk-rated companies in Europe defaulting on debt-using credit default swaps. It is watched very closely because it indicates sentiment in the credit markets.

The iTraxx Index hit its highest level in its five-year history, implying that a record number of sub-investment grade companies in Europe are getting closer to being unable to meet debt obligations.

Stress was also evident in the short-term money markets, with the spread between sterling overnight market rates and London interbank rates rising to 164 basis points from 127 basis points in January.

You might say that a key investor, one of the exemplars, is no longer bullish on the pure bulls. Or on the unregulated bulls. Or on the totally free market bulls.

Billionaire investor George Soros told Bloomberg News that the current global financial crisis originated during the deregulation of the 1980s, and signals the end of the free market model that has dominated capitalist countries, and indeed much of the developed world, since the the end of the Cold War with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

European leaders of the Group of 20 took the first step in market regulation. The leaders said that all financial products, including hedge funds must be regulated.

The leaders also said that the resources of the International Monetary Fund must be doubled to $500 billion. British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said that the increased funds should be used to help Eastern European economies.

Members who were polled agreed that "all financial markets, products and participants including hedge funds and other private pools of capital which may pose systemic risk must be subjected to appropriate oversight and regulation."

If you are sitting in your office or at home thinking: "What am I going to do next? The economy is getting worse by the day," you are not alone. For the first time in a generation real fear has gripped the nation. This was reflected in the action of the markets since the beginning of the month.

Global markets are at multiyear lows, as is the U.S. Dow Jones Industrial average. The S&P index sank below the psychological 800 level.

This past week, attention was focused on central and eastern Europe, where the recession is gaining momentum on the downside. Now add to this mix the banking crisis. Investors are fearing a lack of solvency among the big international banks. Credit default swaps are rising, with Korea hitting a three-month high. Then you have the crisis in Japan, where GDP is falling by an annualized rate of 12.7% in the past three months.

I am the Global Editor at MoneyShow.com and each week I interview an investing expert. This week, I spoke with Heiko Böhmer, editor of Privatfinanz-Letter, who says it's not yet time to return to the German stock markets.

Q. The German economy entered a recession in the third quarter of 2008. Recent projections estimate that it will shrink by 2.25% this year, its worst performance since World War II. With that in mind, which, if any, sectors do you see actually growing in 2009?

A. It's not easy to find growing sectors in this tough economic environment. But I think that utilities and basic goods will show some growth this year. On the other hand, it will be very tough for the most important German sectors-cars and car suppliers.

The earnings parade continues tomorrow, and in the morning Wall Street will get to see how Swiss Bank UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) made out for its fourth quarter.

The company is going to be reporting in the morning, and expectations are not running very high for the troubled bank. Analysts on average are looking to see the company show a loss for the quarter of $1.15 per share. While this looks pretty bad at first glance, it would be a great improvement over the same period last year in which the company showed an actual loss of $5.43 per share.

Barclays (NYSE: BCS) posted earnings that would be the envy of almost any other global bank. In the process, it gave the troubled banking industry some hope that the future will not be one of ongoing losses stretching well into this year, if not into next.

The bank's second half surprised analysts. According to Bloomberg, "It looks like a pretty good underlying performance and start to 2009," said Michael Trippitt, a London-based analyst at Oriel Securities Ltd., who has an `add' rating on Barclays." A lot of the improvement came because many of Barclays large consumer and business service divisions did well when the effects of toxic asset where taken out.

Perhaps no economy in the world is in such disastrous shape as Iceland. Last year, the weight of the global financial crisis crushed this island nation causing its banking system to implode, its currency to collapse and its unemployment rate to soar.

This is quite a reversal for the country founded circa 874 AD. The United Nations' Human Development Index ranked Iceland as the world's most developed country. Maybe that was the result of the reckless abandon shown in running the country's banks.

In the economic analysis field, there are forecast revisions, and then there are 'gappers,' and Wednesday's IMF revision is definitely a gapper.

The International Monetary Fund now expects 2009 global GDP growth to total a scant 0.5% - - down from the 1.7% GDP growth it forecast in November 2008, as the bad debt-led U.S. recession contracts economies from Germany to Russia to emerging markets in Asia.

Further, the IMF also now sees 2009 bank losses from toxic assets totaling as much as $2.2 trillion, up from its previous $1.4 trillion estimate announced in October 2008.

Fast food giant McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD) is going to be reporting its fourth quarter results Monday, and investor's are going to be watching this one closely as McDonald's has so far been one of the rare blue chip stocks that has been able to perform well in the current economic slowdown.

While the market has been pretty rocky for most companies, McDonald's has continued to hold up very well, and over the past 3 months the stock has risen by 6.5%. If you look at the last 12 months, the stock has been even more impressive, showing a rise of 13.9%, which any investor would have loved to have over the past year.

Going into Monday's earnings report, the company is expected to show earnings of $0.83 per share. For its fourth quarter 2007, McDonald's put up earnings of $0.73 per share, which beat analyst estimates by 2 pennies.

Taking a look at same store sales in the quarter, it would appear that it should be another strong quarter for the company. In October, same store sales were up by 8.2%, and the company followed that up by showing same store sales growth of 7.7% for the month of November.

Why are investors shunning one of the most liquid and safest assets in the world?

The German auction of 10-year bonds failed to receive the 6 billion euros the government wanted to raise. Countries across Europe including the UK, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands, had either to struggle to sell their bonds or cancel their debt offerings because of lack of demand. This is particularly foreboding because this year governments around the world are looking to raise $3,000 billion, three times more than in 2008.

There is another deeper problem lurking beneath the surface. The purchase of a country's debt is based on faith that the government will pay the bondholders back in full. Could it be that investors in Europe are losing faith in their governments? That may be one reason for staying out of these markets.

Let's now cross the pond to the U.S. So far our Treasury auctions have had good demand with more bids than the amount of debt that was offered for sale. However, we just seen a crack in the auction of $30 billion of 3-year notes. The Treasury had to use an "indirect bid" to complete the sale. An indirect bid is used by the Treasury to buy its own securities. Also, some investors are moving back into corporate bonds with higher yields and out of U.S. Treasuries. With a $1.2 trillion dollar deficit, let's hope that investors do not lose their appetite for our bonds and notes. I don't think we really can count on other countries like China to help us out for two reasons. First, they have their own problems. And second, with our interest rates near zero, who would want to invest billions of dollars and receive virtually no return on capital.

Let's watch our Treasury auctions carefully to see if the European trend carries over to the U.S.

What are you thoughts on this trend?

On Tuesday Russia cut off all natural gas to Ukraine, creating shortages in Europe that could spread across the continent as a cold snap grips the region, Bloomberg News reported.

Gas shortages were reported in Ukraine, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, and Hungary.

The shortages were expected to extend to Germany, Austria and broader Europe, as a cold snap with temperatures below 20 F degrees is expected to increase demand for fuel in Eastern and Central Europe, The New York Times reported Tuesday. When the natural gas is flowing, Europe imports about 20% of its natural gas from Russia.

The current Russia natural gas cut-off has already lasted longer than the last Russian cut-off, in January 2006.

It's about price . . . and politics

The dispute pertains largely to price, but also involves geopolitics. Russia's oil and natural gas giant Gazprom is seeking to raise the price of natural gas to $450 per 1,000 cubic meters from $179.50 last year, and to collect fines for alleged late payments. The Times reported. However, analysts also believe Russia is upset with Ukraine's move to apply for North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership and the nation's closer ties with the United States and Europe. Ukraine is seeking to integrate more fully with the West, but Russia views Ukraine as part of its sphere of influence.