1) Remember that there is no perfect solution, and there are no completely “safe” investments. Diversification is an attempt to manage risk by spreading out the risk among different assets.

2) The services of a good financial advisor are important. Their job is learning about everything having to do with personal financial management. They can answer your questions and give you sound advice; as long as you pick a good one.

3) You’ll want to divide your stock holdings among several different sectors. Having too much money in a single industry, such as healthcare or technology or real estate, could be disastrous if something bad happens to that group of stocks.

4) Most people will tell you to buy mutual funds. However, mutual funds have fees, often on average do no better than the indexes, and are harder to get in and out of. Though they do sometimes have tax advantages. Talk to you your financial advisor about holding ETFs instead. ETFs trade like stocks but are attached to specific indexes instead. For example, if you think biotech is an industry with good long term prospects, there are several biotech ETFs that track the movement of 20+ stocks all in one asset.

5) Beyond stocks, it’s a good idea to hold CDs, and bonds as “safer” investments, and many people recommend at least 5% of your portfolio go into precious metal related investments. Since early 2000, the price of gold has gone up over 400%.

6) It is possible to be too diversified however. This is where fundamental and technical analysis comes in learning about Sector Rotation techniques can seriously improve your portfolio.

So what’s a trader to do?

http://www.ino.com/info/553/CD4064/&dp=0&l=0&campaignid=3

Regardless of how you feel about gold, this market presents some great trading opportunities that you can capitalize on using our “Trade Triangle” technology.

Now, hard-core gold bugs will not subscribe to this method of trading as they prefer to buy physical gold and hold onto it or bury their bars in their backyard, and to be honest with you, there is nothing wrong with that belief.

I’ve been asked to update our outlook on gold, so I thought that today I would make a short video to share with you some of the points I see in the current market.

http://www.ino.com/info/553/CD4064/&dp=0&l=0&campaignid=3

As always, our videos are free to watch and have no obligation. The only thing that we ask is that you share your views on our blog. The views can be bullish on gold or bearish on gold, the choice is yours to make.

Enjoy the video,
Adam Hewison
President, INO.com
Co-creator, MarketClub.com

At the current prices, GU has the potential to become a 10-bagger.

Let’s start by discussing what a 10-bagger is and why GU has the potential to become the next 10-bagger: a 10-bagger is a stock that multiplies its current price by 10. Let’s say a stock is at $1. If it starts an uptrend that goes up to $10, that’s a 10-bagger.

Now let’s check how a potential 10-bagger looks like. A stock with such potential is usually a stock that dropped like a rock in a previous bear market. The stock then consolidates for some time, and starts a new uptrend that reaches the price it was before the bear market.

Here’s a nice example of a 10-bagger: CROX:

It’s not easy to find a stock that drops as fast as CROX did in the past… the stock went from $70 to less than $1 in just 1 year! At that time everyone was telling CROX was a terrible company and that it would go to $0. Now that was panic talking. That was the best possible point to buy CROX stocks.

As you can see in the chart, CROX is now back to $10 and those that bought it at $1 made good money.

Now let’s check GU:

- GU also dropped like a rock, just like CROX and now it’s consolidating for over a year around $1.

- $1 is a vital support for GU right now, and the good thing is that IF this stock starts to move it can become the next 10-bagger.

- On the short term, GU can move up to $3 without many problems. It just needs some good news to triple its price in days or weeks.

- After the $3, there are not many resistances so GU can reach the $10. It should take some time to reach such a target, and as always there are risks.

- But the potential is there for sure…

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Recently PURE saw its shares rocket after it said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had cleared its new silver-based disinfectant for use in a variety of food-handling settings. The product, which is considered virtually non-toxic to humans, will be marketed as a sanitizer for food preparation surfaces under the name IV-7 Ultimate Germ Defense for Food Contact Surfaces.

This can be just the beginning of a monster rally for PURE. The weekly chart, displayed below, shows a monster movement with great volume. currently the stock is consolidating in small volume, which is a positive signal that we’re only in a profit taking phase, not a trend reversal.

By looking into the all time data you get the impression of how high PURE can get soon…

PURE can easily reach $6 on the short/medium term. That means the stock can easily double from the current prices.

Due to the recent news and developments, PURE has a powerful bullish chart, so I believe the company is headed for much higher levels soon.

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Recently the company had a nice rally and jumped from $0.80 up to $1.49 in a matter of days.

The good news is that TELK might be ready for another run up:

The impressive rally in TELK was made with great volume which shows a real interest on the stock.

After reaching the $1.49, the stock started to retrace until $1, which is now a major support area. This retracement was made with small volume which is also a positive signal.

Right now at $1.11, TELK is a great buying opportunity. The short term target is at $1.40 (26% profit).

The stop loss is just below the $1 area so we’re risking less than 11% in this trade.

On the long term TELK can get much higher. The recent rally can be just the 1st step into a rally that can take TELK to at least $2 on the medium-long term.

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Everything is great! Happy days are here again… Right?

So is the DOW, S&P, and NASDAQ all going to keep going higher forever? Or are the teachings of a dead mathematician going to reverse this juggernaut of a market?

In my new video I show you exactly what I mean and how the these indices could be very close to a very important tipping point.
Click here to watch!

This is without a doubt, one of the most important videos I have ever made and if you are concerned about your financial future, you don’t want to miss it.

PSOF is trading near a 9 months uptrend line. The stock shows a typical Triangle formation which should lead to a breakout to the upside. The MACD is currently showing a buy signal, giving us an extra strength for this trade. PSOF is a buy at $6, with a stop loss at $4.90, and a short term target at $8.

To get more free stock picks, just go to Top Trading Picks and sign up our newsletter… We pick the best stocks, and send them to you by email, 100% free… Sign up now!

To really make this point (and to offer some perspective) I’ve plotted the Dow, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ Composite on the chart below. I’ve also added two sets of support lines. The red ones are the longer-term support line that had been guiding the market higher since June’s low. The blue ones are shorter-term, stemming from the lows made between September and November (and these are the ones that gave the market a little more wiggle room for a pullback).

As you can see, all the longer-term support lines were broken a few weeks ago. Two out of the three short-term lines have been broken as well. Only the NASDAQ hasn’t slipped under its short-term support level, but even a small move lower from here would do the job.

Major Indices Breaking Support Lines

No big deal, as we’ve been planning on things getting worse for a while. This is just perspective on how that’s taking shape. The dark green horizontal lines are my tentative target areas.

That’s not what I wanted to talk about today though.

Perspective on New, Continuing Claims

I love the media’s ability to sensationalize anything. The latest round of it came this morning with suggestions that the slight upticks in new and continuing claims was iron-clad evidence that we’re in the verge of the next Great Depression (my paraphrasing). While any job loss is painful, and while a new Great Depression may well be in the cards, the media may want to think about how inconsequential the numbers really were.

Oh, don’t get me wrong – I know they sound huge. Between 4.6 million ongoing unemployment claims and 480,000 new unemployment claims, it ‘feels’ earth-shattering. What they didn’t tell you is that both are still running about 1/3 less than they were in mid-2009.

As you know, I love charts, but I’m not really a chartist at heart. I use charts because it’s a way for me to organize and interpret a lot of information very quickly with much-needed perspective.

You know what the charts of new and continuing claims tell me right now? That despite the disappointing and higher-than-hoped job loss numbers over the last few weeks have been tough to digest, they’ve actually just been trending flat. Moreover, the bigger trend is still one that’s driving these figures lower. Take a look.

Unemployment Claims Data

Don’t get me wrong – I’m concerned too, since all major reversals start out as small blips. At this point in time though, the only thing we have with the claims data is a blip in a much bigger downtrend.

And you want to know the really stunning part that the media tends to not mention? The continuing claims data is two weeks old when you get it; the new claims data is a little less than a week old when announced. A lot can happen (for better or worse) in the meantime.

All the same, I’ll continue to watch these claims charts for a troubling move higher, but what we’ve seen so far isn’t troubling. Likewise, I still contend the markets got a little more ground to give up, but it’s not necessarily the beginning of a new bear market.

By the way, if you’re interested in learning more about how to actually use economic data as an investor, be sure to attend Friday’s webinar…
Click here to reserve your spot in the webinar!

Readers who’ve been around for a while will know our strategy is longer-term in nature, but we choose to use peaks and bottoms as entry and exit points. Those nickels and dimes add up, and if you win enough battles, you’ll eventually win the war.

I bring the analogy up to reiterate that one bad day for stocks is a battle…. not a war. For that matter, it’s not even a complete battle.

The chart of the S&P 500 below plots some pretty clear - and pretty reliable (so far) – trend lines. As you can also see, the S&P 500 was also pressing its luck with the recent push into the upper edge of this bullish zone. Well, its luck ran out today.

From here, the S&P 500 could (dare I say ’should’?) fall back to 1090 or so, where the lower edge of the zone, or support line, is. Maybe it will fall right under it. Maybe it will bounce off of it. Or, maybe it won’t touch it at all. Based on history and odds though, I think we have to be realistic about out expectations….. both good and bad. Bull trends have survived worse, and not that long ago either.

Today is just the first day of a battle that’s favoring the bears. The bears could win a few more days, and it still wouldn’t break the bigger-picture uptrend. … and that’s the war we’re more interested in. In fact, losing the battle could be a good thing, by giving us a chance to pick up some stocks on the cheap.

Just some perspective.

S&P 500 - 1/12/10