The three most important things to know today.

In no particular order:

1.) China stocks are getting jiggy, too jiggy. When you see stocks move like that, you have to get nervous. Even the biggest China bull of all, Jim Rogers, is warning that investors might be in a hysterical state of mind. You never know when or exactly how one of these bubbles deflates, but deflate eventually they do. If you plan to put money there, you may want to hold off and see if you can come in after the panic.

2.) There are more funky noises coming out of the US subprime housing arena. On the other hand, there are people saying the housing market has bottomed. I think that's a premature call, and we need to see how this subprime issue plays out before we can make that call. And note the first line of the article from MarketWatch:

Rising defaults in some of the riskiest home loans offered by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. signal a recession may be looming, Jamie Dimon, the bank's chief executive said Tuesday.

3.) Finally, it's funny how the Jack discovery by Chevron and Devon (coming to gas station near you in about, oh, 6 or so years, maybe) was huge news and the fact that one of the world's largest old fields, Cantarell of Mexico (and one very important to us) is seeing fairly steep production declines is not quite as important. While the oil market is seemingly (if you watch CNBC) focused on the weather and minute by minute updates of commentary (often conflicting) coming out of Saudi Arabia and OPEC, this news is actually more important.