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Good Tuesday afternoon, one and all. Well, how about the market today? Stocks were still on the fence as of Monday's close, but a surprisingly strong reading on the new-home sales front prodded the market into bullishness. Maybe things aren't so bad after all.

In any case, I think what happened today (and we're still not so sure it's the beginning of a trade-worthy rally) kind of supports something I've been thinking for a while. That is, everything's been anemic with economic data, and so too have stocks. We need some big, bold data to shake the market out of this rut. It's pretty clear stocks can't move higher because of valuation concerns, but it's equally clear traders aren't willing to send stocks lower, out of fear of missing out on what might happen later this year. After all, the economic news and earnings reports were never "bad". They've just not been "great" in a while. Today's surge in new-home sales was some truly "great" data, and traders made it clear they will respond to it.

Now they just need to see a little - ok, a lot - more of it. When it all comes down do it, investors just need to believe earnings will grow. That's something they haven't had in a while.

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Good Monday afternoon one and all. Today's the day. By that I just mean today's the day we close the can of worms we opened on Wednesday of last week when we first started to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the investing newsletter world. Before we get to the gettin' though, we've got a couple housekeeping items to take care of.

First and foremost, if you're going to be at the SeeThru Equity MicroCap Investor conference next week, be sure to listen to what the guys from Staffing 360 Solutions (STAF) will have to say on Tuesday, May 31st. That's when David Faiman - Staffing 360 Solutions' Chief Financial Officer - and Darren Minton - Executive Vice President - will be making a presentation about the company's growth strategy. The presentation is scheduled to begin at 9:30 am EST, though the company will be present for much of the conference if you can't be there for the presentation itself.

Get in touch with the company if you'd like to set up some sort of meeting.

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Hello friends. Is everybody ready for the weekend? I know I am. Geez what a frustrating week. The market went up and the market went down, but when all was said and done the indices finished the week pretty much where they started it. Worse, the indices ended the week still trapped squarely in between a rock and a hard place. Gotta be honest though... I still sense more downside ahead than upside.

We'll explain why below, but first I want to wrap up the discussion we started on Wednesday with a deep drill-down into the reality of the investment newsletter business.

I know the last couple of chats have been a bit depressing, pointing out the ugly stuff of the financial publishing business, and explaining how so many publishers get it wrong. Today we're going to switch gears and look at how it's done right.

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Hello again, friends and fellow traders. Well, we knew the market was vulnerable. The bears capitalized on that vulnerability today. Thing is, as ugly as things might get for stocks in the near future, we're still thinking the bull market is intact. Any weakness from here is just a much-needed reset, which would do us the favor of reeling in the market's crazy valuations.

It's also the right time of year for weakness, so we're really not sweating it. We're just trying to identify the best way to make a few bucks off of any pullback to offset the lumps our long-term holdings may be taking.

On that note, I'll just mention John Monroe over at the Elite Opportunity saw this move coming several days ago, and traded accordingly. He specifically said back on May 11th:

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Good Wednesday afternoon one and all. We've got something a bit different for you in today's newsletter.... something of a teaser, but perhaps more important, part of an explanation that's going to make perfect sense next week. Before we get to the heart of today's comments though, we've got key updates regarding two of our Featured Stocks.

I don't think it's something we're not supposed to know, since it was Stephen Barber - the President/CEO of Oakridge Global Energy Solutions (OGES) - who told us about it. So far though, I've seen no press release or public mention of the fact that Oakridge Global Energy Solutions will be hosting a conference call on Thursday to share some new information with current and would-be shareholders...

... not that we're complaining about being the only ones in-the-know so far. Heck, the more you know that other investors don't know, the more of an edge you have. We're guessing, however, some sort of public announcement will be made between now and then.