People are apparently dying to know shit from me so... The early rally from January that was sparked as confidence from investors grew that the recession was ending has been shot dead this month as a possible bailout with Greece becomes more and more a question of when and not if. Although bailing out Greece gives some security to the Euro's value, it has also put off some of Europe's fringe Baltic nations (Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania) from moving forward with plans to make the Euro switch. Personally, that doesn't bother me much since Latvia isn't in a recession, it's in depression. Another hindrance that a bailout would cause would be the possibility that it sets a precedent, and a wide-open door for other nations, notably Portugal and Spain, to make their case for their own bailout. In fact, the sad part about this is that Italy is in just as bad a situation, yet for some reason they seem to live under the radar, although in my opinion they should be the I of PIGS— not Ireland. Even so, there are companies out there that are worth investing in. As mentioned in another thread, Jeronimo Martins (EN-JMT) and West Fraser Timber (TMX-WFT) are both companies that are progressing... WFT had a good January, but ran into trouble early on in February as did most of the market but it has already bottomed out and is on the rise. Judging from their trend, I predict their gain will cap off between 5 and 8 (37 and 40) and then will probably fluctuate by 2 or 3 points for a few weeks before any significant shift upwards or downwards, but again, referencing the available information, they tend to lose points after their gains, so if you do buy and get stuck with them on the down-slide, sell as they get out of the fluctuation range of 3 points. Jeronimo Martins just posted record profits in the year 2009 and will continue to be a safe bet if you're looking for gains of 3 points at the yearly range. If you're looking at quarterly they have been posting 1 point gains. I don't know what kind of selling advice is appropriate since just about every single loss they make will be at most 1 point, which shouldn't be panic-inducing, and looking back through their chart, the only time where they went beyond that was in October of 2008, AKA "get the ******** out" month or alternatively the "cheap-buys" month. As it is, I'm sure a lot of people managed to turn 2009 into a very lucrative year thanks to that month. Just to give you an idea of why this isn't that much of a concern for the present lemme present the following prominent investment firms and other important stock companies... MORGAN STANLEY (NYSE-MS)-Dipped as low as 6 in Oct. 08' and is now at 27. An investment of 1200 at that time would've gotten you a return of 5400 today. (as a a side-note, I have a connection at their Jersey base... hey, you never know!) AIG (NYSE-AIG)-Dipped to 3.73 and is now at 24.38. An investment of 1119 would've yielded 7314 today! Granted, I would've called you a moron for picking them up at that time since there was no certainty that Uncle Sam would step in, but I would gladly kiss your feet today if you did. Goldman Sachs (NYSE-GS)-Dropped down to the still not-bargain price of 132.84 and today is at 149, though we're going to use their October 2009 (exactly one year after the melt-down) price of... 184.01 (!!!!!!!!!). An investment of 1195.56 would've gotten you 1656.01. Obviously the actual gain is small, because the starting out price is exorbitant but you could have still made very nice gains. UBS (NYSE-UBS AG)-Was one of the very select few not insanely effected by the events of October 2008. They went from 22 to 17, September to October in 08'. So although they didn't take a hard-hit, constant doubts about this company remain and they posted a loss in the 2-year range and are down to 13. BEAR STERNS (NYSE-LEHMQ.PK)-Remember them? Down 3 cents from their October 8 price of 10 cents. FORD MOTOR COMPANY (NYSE-F)-Their model of copycatting Toyota (minus the brake defects!) has left them up at 11.14 from 4.47. An investment of 1192.50 would've returned 2785. Now... my personal favorite... Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE-CMG)-I didn't buy this, but a friend of mine tipped me off two years ago prior to the market crash, and during a downward spiral for the company, about them... in retrospect, I should've listened. They were at around 49 when I was given the tip. Now? 96.89, and I have little doubt they'll continue onwards to around 120. Overall the Financial Firms for the most part are still reeling when you look at CitiGroup, JPM (which was never a great bet to start with for making money) and UBS. However, most of the other stocks have seen at least 50% increases and in many cases this figure is much much higher.