Both the property and casualty insurers and the reinsurers are getting cheap. 

I ran a screen of 26 P&C insurers and reinsurers.  These are the price to book and price to tangible book values of the companies.

In the long-term, the market is driven by economics.  But in the short-term, the market is driven by sentiment and liquidity.  This maxim was especially driven home today as the market had its best day in a month. 

The catalyst for the up move was a speech this morning by Fed Chairman, Helicopter Ben Bernanke, when he stated that the Fed is considering extending the lending window to the investment banks into 2009. 

I came into the office this morning wondering if the near-term bottom was in.  I even told a few others in the office that I thought we might bounce.  Several of the averages looked like they were putting in a bottom, and with the market as oversold as they have been in years, I thought the chances were pretty high that the intense selling may be nearing an end.

Commercial real estate prices are falling.

After being down 433 points on Wednesday, the TSE Composite fell another 240 points in the first of our trading today before closing 96 points higher.

Eighty points was tacked on in the last 20 minutes of trading, and 30 points in the last three minutes, suggesting that much of the rally was short-covering.  With decliners outnumbering advancers 2:1, the rally was narrow, and probably driven by a program. 

From Bloomberg

China's manufacturing expanded in June at the slowest pace in almost three years as growth in export orders weakened for the third month, a survey of purchasing managers showed.

Paul Price has a post over on SeekingAlpha on how poorly some very well-regarded value managers have been performing.  Some of the numbers are astonishingly bad.