Last week was the first full week of the Obama presidency. I'm keeping score of the tug-and-pull of a worsening economy verses the economic stimulus program.

It wasn't close. Even as the bill for the $819 billion stimulus package came together and was passed by the House (the senate should be voting on it this week), the struggling economy, plus disappointing earnings news, pushed the market down.

Chalk week one up for the economy…

With an activist government trying to fix the economy this year, there's going to be more so-called "good" news emanating from the government than from the economy or companies.

When the constituent parts of the bailout are unveiled … or passed by Congress … or implemented by various government agencies, they will generally be celebrated.  But not every time. For example, the day that Bush's TARP program was passed by Congress, the market spiraled down. But…

Most of the time they will be taken as good news because the government is doing SOMETHING.

One of the two Congressional houses passing a stimulus bill that was full of pork wasn't enough to rescue the DOW or S&P 500 from registering a loss.  The NASDAQ broke even.

The financials were the best-performing of the four sectors that went up last week. They went up 3.3 percent.  But it couldn't have been because of Well Fargo's quarterly report. They announced a $2.6 billion loss.

Instead, you should chalk it up to news of the government wanting to set up a "bad bank" program to absorb the toxic illiquid assets of banks.

A bad omen is that health care was one of the down sectors. If you look at the last 12 months or the last six months, health care has been the best-performing sector.

It has that recession-resistant cred going for it. But the overarching demographic trend of more boomers getting sick and requiring medical attention could be trumped in a really bad economy. We're not quite at that point yet.

But I'm keeping a close watch on the health-care investments in my Wealth Advantage portfolio.  Last week they were up six percent. So I'm not panicking. But if you have health-care investments, keep an eye on them to make sure they're not dropping behind your back.

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