Now I know how Brett Favre felt with that New Orleans blitz pounding away at him

Dow Jones 10,067 (down), trading week ending 1/29/2010

If you had jumped into the market after those couple down days, buying on the dip,
you were hit with a major hail storm of stock selling and had "your head handed to you" in football slang parlance. Now I know how Brett Favre felt in the NFC Championship game with the New Orleans Saints smacking him down to the ground. It hurts!

The Big Dogs on the street, which have all reported well, Apple Computer (Symbol AAPL), Microsoft Inc.(Symbol MSFT) and Google Inc.(Symbol GOOG), all took their licks this week and were down. Our president, whose friends call him "Barry", gave the State of the Union speech on my birthday 1/27 and the Q4 GDP number came in at 5.7% percent Friday. The street has seen higher numbers in the past coming out of a recession, so good was seen as bad.

One bright note, it is my mentor's birthday today, Louis Rukeyser, who was born 1/30/1933. Happy Birthday Lou!

So, what did do well in January? I went in search to the NASDAQ exchange Sector Performance page for some help on that.

Culp Inc. (Symbol CFI), who is in the textile industry,
"Textiles, are we actually talking about the US textile industry?"
(reference to Allen Iverson - Phila. 76er and his famous quote about "practice"), was up 30.26% in January and continues to elevate. Sales and earnings here seem to be rising. I was looking to buy it on a dip to the sub $10.00 area, but it shot up to $13.06 by the end of the week. I will be patient.

A list of some others which I did not research and am just reporting:
Bare Escentuals (Symbol BARE) up 30 plus % on a tender offer. Mindspeed Tech (Symbol MSPD) up 34.75% in January 2010. LTX Credence (Symbol LTXC) up 41.01%.Libbey Inc. (Symbol LBY) up 34.14%. Radio One Inc.(Symbol ROIA) up 26.73%. Also Houston America (Symbol HUSA) and Crocs Inc. (Symbol CROX) were both up 25% plus.

What does all this mean? That February is coming, and it's cold, and Ground Hog Day is coming up soon here in Pennsylvania,(Phil will see his shadow). These things I am sure of. Everything else is left to chance. Be patient is all I can tell you.

Best regards,

Freewilly