Since fourth quarter earnings seem to be the center of attention this week and for the next three weeks or so, we thought we'd point out an interesting bit of information we uncovered as it relates to retailers this past holiday season. Analysts say holiday sales were the weakest they've been since 2008, and far from what retailers had been expecting. A report that tracks popular holiday gifts shows sales in the two months before Christmas increased .7 percent from last year. But many analysts expected that number to grow three to four percent. The low numbers are being blamed on bad weather, like Super Storm Sandy, rising uncertainty about the fiscal cliff and the national grief felt by the school shooting in Connecticut. How much of that is simply an excuse or whether they were real factors remains to be seen. As for the rest of the markets’ trading behavior today, we’ve got a pretty mixed bag of results across the board with the NASDAQ, S&P and DOW all pretty much flat on the day as Americans are pouring billions of dollars into stocks. Just over $22 billion flowed into long-term equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the week ended Jan. 9, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. That was the second-highest amount on record after the $22.8 billion that went into all equity funds in September 2007. "I have to take this as bullish," said Dennis Gartman, veteran author of the daily Gartman Letter. "Perhaps one gets a bit antsy when the public's in, but inflows are always better than net outflows and the public is still sitting on a mountain of cash or debt securities." Some, however, believe it's too early to tell if this is really a trend. "I'm a little skeptical," Art Cashin of UBS told CNBC on Friday. "I want to see if they continue." The biggest catalyst for new money into stocks may have been Congress finally coming up with a compromise on the fiscal cliff. The battle in Washington had been an albatross around investor sentiment all December because of uncertainty over tax rates for dividends and capital gains. The fiscal cliff deal ended up keeping the dividend and capital gains tax rate at 15 percent for families with incomes below $450,000. "I think this has a large seller's remorse component in it, as a lot of people booked long-time profits off of the fiscal cliff potential tax ramifications in November and December and now they are chasing," said Jeff Kilburg of KKM Financial. Even more striking was the amount of money going into equity mutual funds, the purview of the less-active, more traditional retail investors. Of that $22 billion inflow, $8.9 billion was into these funds, the biggest weekly influx in 12 years. B of A/Merrill Lynch, which uses a composite from Lipper, EPFR and other services, has the data going back to 1992. Does this suggest a looming market top now that the un-savviest of investors are entering the markets? John Monroe, Editor in Chief of our premium SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity (SCN EO), provided some very compelling analysis of the long-term view of the S&P in their morning edition today. If you’re looking for more of a complete analysis of the markets on a short to long-term basis, their technical analysis of the markets have become highly regarded by many professional traders, and their interest continues to grow. Since the markets are so dynamic and the importance of being in the right names becomes increasingly more important as the markets continue to climb, you should check out the new SCN EO by going here: Click Here to Learn More and Sign-Up Or, copy and paste the following link in your browser: http://www.smallcapnetwork.com/pages/SCNEO/v1/. Earnings and Economy On the earning's front, next week will likely become a decent catalyst for the markets, if you're interested in seeing which companies are reporting next week, go here to view the list of companies: http://biz.yahoo.com/research/earncal/20130114.html. On the economic data front, there was a big surprise on the trade deficit data this morning. In November, the trade deficit came in at $48.7 billion. That's well wider than the $41.8 billion that was expected. "The unexpected widening in the trade deficit to a seven-month high of $48.7 billion in November, from $42.1 billion, is not good news for fourth-quarter GDP growth," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics. "It looks like GDP growth was between 1 percent and 1.5 percent annualized." Adjusting for inflation, the November deficit climbed to a four-year high of $51.9 billion, Ashworth said. Much of November’s widened balance of trade deficit came from U.S. consumers buying foreign cars, purchases of which surged 6.3 percent from October’s level. Purchases of cell phones leaped more than 27 percent. While November’s numbers bode ill for the fourth-quarter GDP, there may be – longer term – a silver lining. "The good news is the strength in imports is a sign that the U.S. economy is buying imports," Cary Leahey, an economist at Decision Economics in New York, told Reuters. "Whatever the fourth quarter GDP prints, it will understate the momentum." Small Cap Radar SCN Community contributor, James E. Brumley, published an article today pointing out three bullish small cap prospects for investors to chew on. Mr. Brumley has a history of pointing out successful small cap opportunities well before they become mainstream investment ideas. With a focus on three specific issues this morning, Brumley points out that there's more than one way to skin a cat. Along the same lines, there's more ways to make a buck or two in the market. Take Perficient, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRFT), Splunk, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLK), and Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:BIO) for instance. Though all three are bullish, none are bullish for quite the same reason. Click here to read the whole story. For those investors still enamored with the prospects of China's continued growth, SCN contributor, Bryan Murphy offers an idea in the booming China biotech space in his articled title, "The Back Door Way to Invest in China's Exploding Biotech Market". Murphy points out specifically one small biotech that is on the verge of a merger with a Chinese company called Cellular Biomedicine Group, Inc. (CBMG) that is working on its own dendritic cell-based cancer therapies, which makes it a peer of biotech names Dendreon Corporation and aside ImmunoCellular Therapeutics Ltd. Yet, there's an advantageous twist in the rules Cellular Biomedicine Group faces, largely because it's taking aim at the Chinese biotech market. Click here for the full article. If you're interested in staying on top of the small cap space as a whole, make sure to visit the smallcapnetwork.com homepage daily, it's full of ideas and interesting commentary on small speculative stocks with the potential for enormous returns. Have a great TGIF and an even better weekend.