My girlfriend and I went to Deadwood over the weekend for a break.  As if the markets aren’t scary enough, we were hoping to have a ghostly experience at the Bullock Hotel.

We stopped gambling (in the traditional sense) long enough to catch Saturday Night Live.

We wanted to check out Sarah Palin’s appearance.

That was good, but what I found funniest was this episode of MacGruber, a take-off of the old MacGyver TV show.

If you’ve lost money in this market, I guarantee you’ll find the first episode funny.  (The rest aren’t so good and are not recommended.)

Check it out!

According to cnbc.com, we just witnessed the Dow dropping more than it ever has during any week in history. In other words, the Dow performed worse this week than any week during the Great Depression, or any other time in our history.

CNBC reported that the Dow lost 1874 points or 18.15%, the worst week ever “in terms of points as well as percent drops.”

They went on to state that, “the second biggest weekly percentage drop was the week ending July 21, 1933 when the Dow closed down -15.55% for the week.

The third biggest weekly drop for the Dow on a percentage basis was the week ending Friday, 9/21/01 after 9/11 when the Dow fell 14.26% for the week.”

The article also noted that the Dow swung Friday (10-10-08) more than 1,018 points, breaking another all-time record.

I was watching CNBC Friday morning when the market opened at 7:30 am, MDST. It dropped steadily and rapidly, reaching a low of about 697 points before suddenly and dramatically reversing course.

Just a few minutes later, by about 8:07 am, the Dow hit positive territory. This was a convenient turnaround for President Bush, since he made a statement about the crisis at 8:25 am.

This situation caused me to suspect that the rumored Plunge Protection Team (PPT) may have been working hard Friday morning to support the markets. Many of you may have never heard of the Plunge Protection Team or would like to learn more, so I’ll write about them in a future post.

So the $64 trillion question is, where do we go from here?

By looking at the futures, it looks like Monday could be an up day, but I don’t think we’ve put in a bottom yet.

I agree with Ron Ianieri, chief markets strategist with Options University.

He spoke Thursday with CNBC’s Amanda Drury and made the point that the markets aren’t oversold because the traditional technical indicators and oscillators don’t work during this sub-prime crisis.  He said that the market is “revaluing” itself and that his next downside support level is 7,500 for the Dow.

I also agree with Art Hogan of Jeffries that this isn’t the time to liquidate your entire life savings to cash at this point, but for him to call Friday the bottom is CRAZY in my opinion. (I hope I’m wrong.)  For the happy talk version of reality, please check out this CNBC video of his comments.

Other interesting CNBC videos and links from Friday:

Mr. Optimistic, Jim Cramer, draws frightening parallels between the behavior of the Bush Administration during this crisis, and the behavior of those in the Hoover administration immediately preceding the ‘29 crash.

At another point in Friday’s Mad Money, Cramer said that Dow 5,886 is a possibility.

Hugh Hendry, CIO and partner at Eclectica Asset Management out of London, is up 40% this month with his hedge fund.  Some call him a “fruitcake.”  Any “fruitcake” who can make 40% in ten days in this market has my FULL ATTENTION!

Even while making money hand over fist, Mr. Hendry sounds close to panic.  Please check out his recent comments on this CNBC video.

Bob Andres, the Pollyanna from Porfolio Management Consultants,  ironically pulls a plan out of the Great Depression playbook by calling for bank and market holidays. In this clip, you’ll hear Andres talk about traders’ “irrational pessimism.”  I call the pessimism entirely appropriate.

This cnbc.com article gives some perspective since comparing our current situation to the Great Depression is becoming more common.

See you next time when I hope I’ll be licking my wounds and looking to recoup my losses in about 10 years.  (That’s my optimistic side talking.)

Luckily, I put most of my retirement into cash over a year ago when I decided to listen to the “irrational pessimists” of the world.  The losses I speak of actually just cut into the rather healthy profits I’ve seen since the Spring of ‘04 (about 100%, primarily in oil and gold stocks-PSPFX and USERX, respectively).  No, I wasn’t diversified at all, and I made out like a bandit-that time.

Quote of the Day: “Let Wall Street have a nightmare and the whole country has to help them back in bed again.”

–Will Rogers as quoted in the October 13, 2008 issue of Forbes.