Look, 2009 was a "flush" year. Market rallies were constrained by the low baseline set at the end of 2008, unemployment was high and caution defined nearly every corporate decision. The travel market sucked. The art market sucked. The financial industry labored on with the support of taxpayer money while 140 banks were forced to call it quits. So, we turn to the new year, as yet undefined, for excitement of the type we want ... and it seems likely to deliver. As Nero played from the rooftops, the social media industry inched forward to the climax we hope to see this year -- the initial public offering.

The action hasn't really begun, and the signals emitted are open to various interpretations. Nonetheless, Facebook's new dual-class stock structure is hard to miss, as it would protect the influence of early entrants to the company -- either as investors or options-compensated employees in the event that the 350 million-strong social networking site brings ownership opportunities to the public.

Insurance companies just bought themselves a year. Claiming that a proposed tax on health insurance would force them to charge higher premiums, carriers were able to convince senators to defer this particular measure for a year.

This comes as a benefit to UnitedHealth Group (UNH), WellPoint (WLP) and smaller companies writing health insurance policies. Manufacturers of medical devices have won some relief, as well, though the drug business didn't. An earlier plan to tax cosmetic medical procedures was also scrapped.

Nobody expected bonus season to be comfortable, even with the financial crisis more than a year in the rear-view mirror. Yet, Goldman Sachs (GS) is getting sued over its compensation package, under which key executives are only compensated in long-term stock. In the latest development, John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley (MS), is skipping his bonus for the third year in a row, according to Reuters.

Mack isn't the first banking CEO to go sans bonus this year. Kenneth Lewis, top dog over at Bank of America (BAC) is getting neither a salary nor a bonus for 2009. Both plan to step down at the end of the year, though Mack will stick around Morgan Stanley as chairman. The last time Mack got a bonus was in 2006: he picked up $36.2 million in restricted shares.

Look for a LinkedIn IPO, but not in the near future. Company co-founder and executive chairman Reid Hoffman has revealed his (and his investors') exit strategy, even if it could take a while to get there. Any social media company IPO would take a while to get off the ground in this market, since companies are being incredibly cautious. So, "not anytime soon" could coincide with a change in market conditions ... but Hoffman stopped well short of that.

At an event in London to celebrate LinkedIn's hitting the 3 million user mark in Britain, Hoffman said about the company's IPO prospects, "Probably at some point a balance will occur when that's the right thing. That will not occur in the near term." Worldwide, LinkedIn has 53 million members.

There's a chill in the air and a slight up-tick in confidence. Holiday discounts are coming a bit earlier, too. For retailers, this has been a great combination, leading to the second consecutive month in which retail sales increased.

This follows more than a year of drops. Consumers aren't going crazy, but they are loosening their wallets a little bit. Consumer spending accounts for 70% of the U.S. economy, and the coming holiday season is where the action is -- for the retail sector and, consequently, for everyone else.

What has Blackstone (NYSE: BX) been doing with all those theme parks it's been buying? Well, the answer is becoming a bit clearer now. The private equity firm is getting ready to take theme park operator Merlin Entertainments public early next year.

Several investment banks have already been called to advise on the transaction, including Citigroup (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB), UBS (NYSE: UBS), and Nomura (NYSE: NMR). If all goes as planned, the deal could be good for $3.33 billion.

After months of speculation and years of underperformance, the New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) has decided not to sell the Boston Globe and related businesses. The company claims that the changes made at the Globe to slash expenses and right the ship financially have made it worth holding on to the newspaper. This comes after two parties submitted their final bids (similar financially) for the beleaguered 137-year-old property.

The NY Times Co. picked up the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion. Since then, it's watched the paper's revenue and circulation plummet, a situation worsened by the advent of the internet and the newspaper industry's generally slow response to it. Now, it's apparently worth just under 10% of NYT's original purchase price, with the offers pushed higher by both parties' willingness to assume $59 million in pension liabilities.

The next step remains uncertain for what will go down in history as among the worst newspaper acquisitions.

On Friday, the deadline for submitting bids for the Boston Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), passed. Two major contenders were expected to write figures on slips of paper and slide them across the proverbial desk: Platinum Equity, a Beverly Hills-based private equity firm and owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune, and Stephen E. Taylor, whose family sold the Globe in 1993.

Stephen Friedman, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, stepped down from his post late Thursday. The 71-year-old came under fire when a regulatory filing revealed that he upped his stake in Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) during late 2008, when the bank holding company was under the New York Fed's supervision.

"Today, although I have been in compliance with the rules, my public service motivated continuation on the Reserve Bank Board is being mischaracterized as improper," wrote Friedman in his letter of resignation. "The Federal Reserve System has important work to do and does not need this distraction."

Late last year my colleague Joseph Lazzaro posted a story about NYU's 'Dr. Doom' Roubini: Stocks may fall another 20% during recession. That has to make one take pause when considering an investment in the stock market today, even after a major drop retesting November lows this week. On the other hand, Warren Buffett went out of his way to encourage the investing public and money managers alike that it was safe to go back into the market.

However, today it has been widely reported that Buffett sold off half of his holdings in Johnson & Johnson and trimmed his stake in Procter & Gamble.

This post is part of a series featuring bargain stocks that are worth a look now. See more Cheap Stocks.

Of the 15 components on our Cheap Stocks roster, Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) is the one that my colleague Nick Perry dubbed "a bold choice." With plenty of question marks still surrounding the major financial names, there are undoubtedly those who will go even further and dub this pick "an unwise choice." On the other hand, some will probably just say we're stealing Warren Buffett's idea. With all potential criticisms thusly taken into consideration, let's take a look at what makes Goldman so hard to resist.

First, let's be upfront about the fundamentals. Amid the recent financial crisis, Goldman Sachs is one of the few major names on Wall Street that still has a pulse. Although it's now a bank holding company rather than an investment bank, Goldman stands out by sheer virtue of the fact that it has dodged bankruptcy rumors and has not needed an emergency rescue by one of its peers.

In fact, Goldman Sachs survived because it knew that most of those subprime-derived securities were toxic, and placed bets that the investments would lose value. Regardless, the bank still sold those securities to its clients, so we're not talking about the financial equivalent of Mother Theresa. On the bright side, nor are we discussing the financial equivalent of Nero -- and in today's market, there are plenty of favorable comparisons to be made between GS and its sector peers.

Merrill Lynch analyst Guy Moszkowski had some harsh words this morning for Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS). Rather than a fourth-quarter profit of $2.98 per share, the analyst now expects Goldman to lose 49 cents per share during the quarter. If his prediction comes to pass, it will mark the bank holding company's first-ever quarterly loss as a public company.

While Moszkowski razored his price target on GS from $159 to $100, he maintained his Neutral opinion on the stock. The new target represents a premium of 8.1% to the stock's closing price last Friday. The analyst cites the "stressed" equities market as the primary driver behind his dramatically reduced outlook on Goldman.

In a note to clients, Moszkowski explained that Morgan Stanley's (NYSE: MS) business mix should allow it to weather the choppy market conditions better than Goldman. He trimmed his fourth-quarter earnings forecast on Morgan as well -- dropping his estimate from 72 to 36 cents per share -- but considers the stock a Buy.

The analyst stated, "We still think GS remains in many ways at the forefront of the capital markets industry, but if it can't consistently produce a premium return on equity, it's not going to be able to continue to have the premium valuation multiple that it has enjoyed." As of last Friday's close, Goldman's forward price-to-earnings ratio of 7.63 dwarfed Morgan's ratio of 4.03.

In today's session, MS is up about 5%, compared to Goldman's gain of about 1.2%.

Elizabeth Harrow is an analyst and financial writer in the research department at Schaeffer's Investment Research. She is featured in the video series Schaeffer's Daily Q&A on SchaeffersResearch.com.

This morning, I speculated that Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) might reunite with its former parent -- JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). It looks like I was wrong about that. But the basic idea of finding a merger partner for Morgan Stanley is still alive. The New York Times reports that Wachovia (NYSE: WB) has been in talks with Morgan Stanley about a possible combination.

Morgan Stanley's stock fell another 24% today and Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM), about which I posted this morning, hired Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) to find a buyer. So it could be that less than a decade after Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall act -- which prohibited investment and commercial banks from combining -- we will solve our current catastrophic financial problems by reconstituting the very thing that contributed so heavily to the Great Depression.

This looks to me like a desperate move that is only possible because commercial banks were required -- due to their regulations -- to hold more capital than investment banks. The investment banks were vulnerable because they bought such a huge volume of complex securities that nobody now wants to buy. And the decline in the value of these securities is wiping out the slim sliver of capital that they held.

And now what could become history's biggest transfer of tax dollars to bail out bad lending begins. Last month Congress passed a bill that gave the Treasury Department $800 billion to bail out Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE). And while it is unclear how much money will be used to bail them out, the general outlines of the soon-to-be-announced terms are becoming clearer than they were last night.

The New York Times and The Washington Post report on five key features as follows:

• Government bankruptcy. Fannie and Freddie will be taken under a conservatorship -- which is similar to a bankruptcy wherein a trustee operates the company so it can be fixed and ultimately sold back to public investors. The bailout would reduce the value of their common and preferred shares "to little or nothing," according to the Times.
• Taxpayers bailout defaulted mortgages. Some share of the $800 billion in taxpayer funds will be used to pay "any losses on mortgages [Fannie and Freddie] own or guarantee," according to the Times.
• Payouts on a quarterly basis depending on reported results. Treasury is trying to dribble the bailout over time. "Instead of giving each company a big capital infusion up front, the government could make quarterly injections as the companies' losses warrant. This would be an attempt to minimize the initial cost of the rescue," according to the Washington Post.

BBC News reports that another hedge fund has closed down thanks to its failure to bail out of the oil speculation trade that boosted oil to a peak of $147 in July. This is yet another piece of evidence that people like Hank Paulson, who insisted that record oil prices were due to supply and demand, were either being less than honest -- particularly since his former employer Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) was a big beneficiary of this speculation -- or ignorant of reality.

The hedge fund in question this time is Ospraie Fund, which invested in commodities like oil and gold. It "has lost 38% of its value since the start of the year." Gold is down 22% to $800 from its $1,030.80 an ounce high in March. Oil has tumbled 25% to $109 since peaking in July, according to BBC News. But 1440 Wall Street suggests that the biggest commodity culprit in Ospraie's demise was copper's tumble. The lesson here is that if a sufficient number of big money speculators get together and decide to, say, short the dollar and go long commodities, there will seem to them to have safety in numbers.

But when the government started investigating the cause of spiking oil prices, the trade got very unprofitable very fast. As I posted, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently found that 81% of oil trading volume was driven by speculation. Then we witnessed the failure of SemGroup and the indictment of Optiver Holding for manipulating energy prices -- those funds who were too slow to reverse their positions and got creamed.