That, my friends, is where Michael Arrington had his John McCain moment as he sat on a panel that was being moderated by CNET’s Dan Farber: “The fundamentals of the economy are strong”.  Those were not his precise words… it was more like “we have a strong economy” and there were certainly some murmurs in the audience.

Well… it’s back.  What kind of year has it been since last year?

The S&P 500, widely considered the broadest snapshot of corporate America, slipped 6.12 percent to 806.58; and the Dow gave up 5.07 percent to 7,997.28. Both closed at their lowest levels since March 2003.

The financial crisis has already wiped out $6.69 trillion of value from the S&P 500 since its October 2007 high, and many fear more is to come. Stocks have traded with high volatility in the past few months, with the major indexes soaring only to plunge an hour later as the market looks for a bottom.

“I don’t know what the catalyst is going to be where we turn the corner and people start buying stocks wholeheartedly again,” said Jon Biele, head of capital markets at Cowen & Co. “People got out of the way. The financial situation hasn’t changed.”

The selling on the New York Stock Exchange was staggering — only 158 companies that trade there finished the day positive while 2,943 declined.

Read more.  It would be interesting to see what has happened to some of the winners from last year… or not.