Happy Monday! Well, I suppose it wasn't entirely happy, given the market's response to this weekend's developments in Ukraine. Talk about a fast escalation! In less than a week the whole thing went from announcing new elections to a seizure of its parliament building to Russian troops taking over Crimea; an all-out (albeit small-scale) war could materialize at any moment. No wonder stocks are tanking. If this thing escalates and/or spreads, it could have a global ripple effect that impacts politics, society, and yes, it could even rock the investment world. Gotta be honest though ... of all the things you as an investor have to worry about, what's going on in Ukraine is the absolute least of them. In fact, I don't even know that I'd bother worrying about what's going on there right now. Say what? I know that's not going to be a popular stance today. The situation is tense, the media is covering it at least on an hourly basis, and the experts are talking about the possibility that any conflict could get ugly, and be prolonged. I get all that. I just can't help but recall the same political tensions and the same worries and the same prognostications being made back in April of last year when North Korea was testing missiles on a weekly basis to allegedly fire at South Korea. It never happened. In fact, that political stand-off is now barely even a memory. I seem to recall a similar worry surfacing back in March of 2011, when Japan was hit by a tsunami and a Fukushima nuclear reactor suffered a meltdown, releasing radioactive material into the air. Many predicted Japan's economy - and the global economy to some extent - would suffer for years to come, with the tragedy beginning the end of nuclear power. The market started to recover a couple of weeks later, and even though radioactivity levels have indeed been higher since then (affecting plant and animal life), nobody cares anymore. There are more nuclear power plants planned now than there were then. I also seem to recall the world freaking out back in April of 2009 when swine flu began to spread. The biotech industry doubled their efforts to come up with a solution, even though little of what they were doing at the time could have actually stopped the contagion at that time. Still, all those biopharma stocks benefited while most other stocks struggled, as investors were sure the inevitable pandemic would shut the whole world down indefinitely. It didn't. You can add Greece's sovereign debt crisis, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, and about a dozen other catastrophes to the list.... catastrophes that looked like the end of the world at the time, but have since been largely forgotten. That's not to say any of those disasters should be taken lightly or blown off. Any time human lives are lost, it's tragic. From an investor's point of view though, these things never end up being as bad as they're supposed to be when they're fresh in our minds. The bottom line is, if you liked stocks as of Friday for the long haul, you should still like them now. Oh, we may see continued volatility as a result of what's going on in the Ukraine, but that's just short-term activity. It may not even necessarily be bearish activity. Whatever the case is for the short run, in the long run (six months or more), this weekend's socio-political developments will be pretty well forgotten. In other words, what you need to "do about it" is nothing. Just sayin'. Stocks Bounce Back The "do nothing" point we just made to you was underscored by today's intraday action. Yeah, the market tanked this morning on the heels of this weekend's news about the Ukraine situation, and stocks even closed in the red by more than just a little bit. But, it was interesting to see just how much ground the market reclaimed on an intraday basis. It had half-recovered by the time the closing bell rang. That says a lot about the resiliency of this market. Our chart of the S&P 500 explains it pretty clearly. We saw a deep low of 1834.44 early on... an intraday loss of 1.34%. Then it snapped back to a close of 1845.74, or a loss of only 0.74%. It's still a loss, but between the mid-day recovery and the fact that the volume behind the early selling was rather weak to begin with, I can see the bulls following through on today's bounce on Tuesday.... especially if nothing new develops in Ukraine. The next catalyst for the bulls is just another close above 1849, which we could see as early as tomorrow. Honestly though, I'm bullish either way. I plan on being bullish until/if the S&P 500's floor around 1820 is broken. Stock Talk This weekend's scan of up-and-coming stocks spit out a pretty good batch of trading possibilities. Among the best of the best that we're adding to the watchlist are Crown Castle International (CCI), Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG), Patterson Companies (PDCO), Genesco (GCO), LTC Properties (LTC), Park Electrochemical (PKE), Universal Health Realty (UHT), and General Communications (GNCMA). All the other names we've recently added to the watchlist recently are still on the watchlist, but I don't mind telling you that the longer we watch them without seeing them make good on their potential, the less interesting they become to us. Said another way, the first names we'll be looking at as potential trades this week are today's additions to the watchlist. If your trading finger's getting a little itchy though, the guys at the site have been hard at work today (and late last week) coming up with some trading possibilities. Take John Udovich's look at some Bitcoin stocks in the wake of the Mt. Gox downfall. While the Mt. Gox implosion certainly exposed all of the downside of Bitcoins, in some ways - as Udovich explains - that fiasco has underscored the importance of credible, quality companies that facilitate Bitcoin transactions. Like it or not, Bitcoin isn't going away. Now it's just a matter of figuring out who's going to make it work as it expands. I also thought Peter Graham put some interesting clean-and-green companies under the microscope today.... Vision Industries (VIIC), Bravo Enterprises (OGNG) and Kleangas Energy Technologies (KGET). It looks all three were being promoted, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. Graham lays it all out for you, good and bad. Also, James Brumley made a great observation with Microvision (MVIS) today. Looks like that one's ripe and ready to roll. His chart can tell you why. Finally, if you just don't want to wait for a specific trading idea and/or want more picks than we'll ever be able to give you here in the free newsletter, here's what I suggest. You won't be disappointed.