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A report in The New York Post suggests that Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), could be the logical replacement for current U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The paper's sources indicate that "a number of policy makers have begun mentioning Dimon as a successor to Geithner, whose standing in Washington has suffered because of the country's high unemployment rate, the weakness of the dollar, the slow pace of the recovery and the government's mounting deficit."

Meanwhile, reports the Post, Dimon has emerged as one of the heroes of the financial crisis, "having navigated JPMorgan through the recession and being a go-to guy when Uncle Sam last year needed Wall Street's help during the collapses of Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual."

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet jolted the markets Friday with the announcement that the ECB will gradually withdraw the emergency cash injections it has added to the financial system, in order to prevent an acceleration in inflation.

"Not all our liquidity measures will be needed to the same extent as in the past," Trichet said at a conference in Frankfurt Friday, Bloomberg News reported. "Any non-standard measure whose continuation would pose a threat to the achievement of price stability must be undone promptly and unequivocally."

The stock market is rallying. Commodities are on a tear. Yet the dollar is falling. Why?

There are several reasons for the drop in the dollar, but the most obvious and simple answer is that investors around the world are selling dollars and using the money to buy stocks and commodities, particularly oil and gold.

Last week India announced that it had bought 200 tons of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF.) At an average of say $1000.00 per ounce, the transaction amounted to about $7 trillion dollars. Chances are that India sold dollars from their sovereign fund to buy the gold.

Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new 2009 high, trading above 10,225. GDP growth came in at 3.5% for the third quarter.

However, what we are experiencing is a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. Last Friday, the Labor Department reported that unemployment is now above 10%. Consumer spending for September fell .5%, the biggest drop since December 2008.

The market continues to befuddle the bears as the third quarter earnings and stock prices continued to move in a positive direction.

During this period Washington has taken charge of the auto industry and helped prop it up with the "cash-for-clunkers" program. They continue to subsidize the real estate market with first-time home buyers incentives, and very low interest rates. The banks are being refueled by the Federal Reserve with interest rates as low as zero, while all the time currency stability has been sacrificed. This has driven gold prices to new highs.

This is the third review of my 2009 stock picks through September 30 (see: Chasing Value: 9 picks for 2009 -- APC, GE, ISRG, WFC and more). This years picks have annihilated index comparisons, so much so that I must attribute some of my good fortune to luck. However, I do believe the original reasoning was sound and the outlier nature of the gains certainly a result of an oversold market living in fear.

Why are stocks trading at record highs? Last week we had a dismal report on unemployment, rising to above 10%. Stocks should have opened weaker today. Wrong. Stocks surged to new highs with the Dow trading at 10,147 up 126 points. Why the sudden change ot trend? The catalyst came over the weekend when the G 20 agreed to keep stimulus packages in place for their respective economies. Traders interpreted this as a buy signal because it means that more money will be sloshing around the world stimulating business and increasing profits.

U.S. stock futures were higher Friday morning, continuing Thursday's strong performance and nearing two-week highs. All eyes this morning will turn to the government's jobs report. While there have been signs of growth and recovery in the economy, the labor market has been one of the biggest concerns, as the Federal Reserve statement just from Wednesday attests.

[Update 8:33 a.m.: Stock futures changed course after the government reported the unemployment rate rose to 10.2%, above the 9.9% expected. Nonfarm payrolls dropped by 190,000 in October, bringing to total number of jobs lost in the recession to 7.3 million.]

U.S. stock markets surged about 2% on Thursday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average reclaiming the 10,000 mark with a 203 point move. Positive economic news, including sales results from retailers and upbeat outlook from tech giant Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO).

What a week it was and it is starting off with more of the same! The day before Halloween the market gets spooked. The Dow drops 200 one day, rises 200 the next, and falls 250 to close the week. Yes, financial pundits could point to meaningful stories about the dollars rise, consumer spending sagging, the recession ending and so forth to explain market reactions but there is more to it than that.

Even among the 15 positions discussed in Where should granny put $50,000? only the Vanguard Total Bond Market exchange-traded fund (NYSE: BND) and the Kellogg Co (NYSE: K) were up last Friday. Good thing I advised "granny" to put half her funds in the ETF.

Halloween, though not the blockbuster holiday that Christmas is, still results in some additional spending on the part of consumers as they stock up on candy and costumes, and maybe take in a scary movie or two. With those treats in mind here are some stocks that may give investors sweet dreams -- and hopefully not nightmares.

As is well known, candy is all the rage at Halloween, and among the largest candy stocks are Hershey Co. (NYSE: HSY) and Cadbury PLC (NYSE: CBY). Last week, Hershey reported third-quarter earnings rose 30% despite weaker volumes affected by higher prices for its sweets. Last year's numbers also included special charges. Still the company said it expects full-year earnings to be ahead of Wall Street forecasts. In 2010, the Pennsylvania company said it expects earnings excluding items to rise 6% to 8%. The stock has a forward-looking price-to-earnings ratio of 16 and a current dividend yield of 3.1%.

Wow! What a difference a few hours makes. At the beginning of trading today stocks and commodities were steady. Then as the morning wore on, the US dollar strengthened and it all broke loose. Let's look at the numbers: (as of 1:29 EDT)

• US dollar December futures contract traded at 76.125, up .525 (the US dollar is based on a basket of currencies.)
• December euro is at 1.4866, down .0134
• The December S & P contract is down 10.60 at 1066.30
• December crude oil is at $78.40 per barrel, down $2.10
• December 30 year bond is at 118.10, down 23.
• December wheat is at 530.6 down 17 cents (each penny equals $50.00)
• December gold is at $1043.40 per ounce, down $13.00 (each $1.00 equals $100.00)

Wall Street watchers can be excused for feeling a little whipsawed this week. After watching stocks lose ground early in the week, they roared back Thursday, riding high on a bevy of upbeat earnings reports. That enthusiasm remains partially on display this morning with two of the three major U.S. stock indexes showing a positive opening ahead of the morning bell.

At about 7 a.m. ET, the Nasdaq Composite Index and S&P 500 were slightly higher, while the Dow Jones industrial average was down by about 4 points. The Dow gained 1.3% Thursday to close the session at 10,081.31, led by the strong earnings reports from five of the benchmark index's 30 component stocks.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that as long as we're trapped in a commoditized stock market, use the futures to go bargain-hunting.

What if individual stocks want to go up, but the market wants to go down? Don't laugh. In 1982, when The Kansas City Board of Trade started trading Value Line futures (before there were S&P futures), we used to kick around in securities classes what would happen if eventually stocks became so commoditized that individual companies couldn't be removed from the gravitational pull.

For example, we know today looks like a terrible day, with Europe down horribly and our futures real soggy. But then we look and see that J. Crew (NYSE: JCG) (Cramer's Take), one of the best retailers, is not just saying that the fall season is good; it is saying it is blowout beyond imagination. The big Dow stock 3M (NYSE: MMM) (Cramer's Take) is not just saying that things are getting better; it is showing that business is very strong. The monster insurer and fellow Dow stock Travelers (NYSE: TRV) (Cramer's Take) is boosting the dividend and showing you how a responsible financial can behave.

For the past 48 hours people have been asking me if I thought the market would pull back after the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassed the milestone of 10,000. Business journalist's and guru's alike have suggested that there might be some profit taking or "selling into strength" and the recent highs would not hold.

As the market proved yesterday, up about a half percent across the board, with the Dow closing at 10,062.94, up 47.08 in last-minute buying -- that is just a lot of noise.

Spurred on by strong earnings from JP Morgan Chase & Company and Intel, the Dow punched through the 10,000 mark today.

The Dow 10,000 is a psychological level. Very often traders pay attention to round numbers like 10,000. Breaking through often kicks off buy stops and that is an added push to the move. Traders also see strong earnings by two giant companies as a positive for the market and often follow along with the momentum.

Recapping, the market was last at 10,000 back in October when it broke that mark on the downside. The index is down 29.4% from its 2007 peak of 14,164.53.

Do you believe that the market will continue to move higher?

We had a lot of big names trading up to new 52 week highs again today. The overall markets were pretty flat, with the DOW closing the day down 0.14%, the NASDAQ closing the day's trading up 0.04%, and the S&P ending the day a bit lower to finish today's trading down 0.28%.

Here are a few of the names that moved higher during the day to set new 52 week highs.