Markets

How much time are you going to spend thinking about the next stock you buy? If you're like most Americans, the answer is "not much." According to research from ING, "the average American spends more time researching a new refrigerator than they do stocks."

If, after 2008, you still expect the stock market to fund your retirement, most people probably consider you a few congressmen short of a bailout. (Zing!) Yes, it was tough being openly optimistic after a year in which every bull became a steer.

"As stock markets slid in March, Judy Brady lay awake at night thinking about her portfolio. 'My retired friends who had all CDs and gold, and they were still making money, and my investments just kept going and going,' she said. 'I thought: I can't afford to lose all this.' So the 70-year-old retiree in Schaumburg, Ill., sold most of her stocks." -- The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2009

"It's the world's greatest company, period." -- Arjun Murti, Goldman Sachs analyst

There's nothing wrong with fixing your focus on trying to find the next Wal-Mart. After all, isn't that what we're here forin the first place?

I'll give Secretary of Defense Bob Gates this much -- he's no Alan Greenspan, mumbling and grumbling through Congressional hearings one day, then recanting his every belief the next.

Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) have been navigating a bleak environment created by the housing hangover. Unlike homebuilders Hovnanian (NYSE: HOV) and Standard Pacific (NYSE: SPF), these companies stayed clear of the cliff's edge, generating positive annual earnings and steady dividends. Fortunately for Home Depot and Lowe's, toilets back up, and roofs leak, creating repairs that can't be postponed -- definitely or indefinitely -- the way a home purchase can.

Once upon a time, somebody wrote that: "The customer is always right." But it seems Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) never got the memo. This week, it got a cold dash of the water of reality instead … right in the face.

A strong competitive position is one of a company's most valuable assets. Fast growth and healthy margins are all well and good, but they aren't worth much if any old competitor can easily waltz in and snatch them away.

As the gambler knows: "You gotta know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em." A lot of gold investors may have folded Thursday as prices careened below near-term support, but those more comfortable with the cards in their deck may be more inclined to ante up.