It appears to me that the strongest sectors right now are:

Tech
Healthcare
Natural Resources
In that order.

How about Energy
and do you think that transportation is bottoming, particularly the railroads.

Favored Sectors in a column of X's:

CHEMICALS, TEXTILES, COMPUTERS, GAS UTILITIES, SOFTWARE, PROTECTION/SAFETY, SEMI'S, AUTO & PARTS, FINANCE, RETAIL, OIL SERVICE, METALS NON FERROUS, OIL RESTAURANTS, PRECIOUS METALS, & WALL STREET.

Zack's has an industry ranking list, and according to my little birdy friend, restaurants and textiles have made a big move up. Can't say I agree. But among the textile group, the highest ranked was Culp (CFI). Haven't checked it out yet. Restaurants listed were BWLD, TAST, CMG.B, CBRL, PZZA. Again, haven't researched them.

wow, looking at F5, wwp list, I wouldnt have guessed - like ig, I am focussed on Nat Res & Energy, which seem to have done well in this rally. (Are we there yet?)

IG, good point. I'm tempted to buy SKF now. Marty Weiss and company and Tobin Smith who've made good calls on the inverse ETFs have been quiet lately. There still might be some more irrational optimism left.

The double funds, especially the double inverse funds don't play by the rules. There have been numerous posts on this forum about how and why they don't follow the precise double pattern you might expect. With all due respect to F-5 and his P&F charts, it's the wild wild west out there with these strange new animals like SKF and SRS in this highly volatile market.

Traditional P&F shows SKF going to zero and quickly. Somehow, I don't see that happening. Another way of looking at the chart is this:

If you bought SKF at $110 or below in the last year and had some good sense and some good luck, you've done very well. From a fundamental point of view, there aren't many people out there saying it's calm seas ahead for banks.

http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.pnf?chart=skf,PLTADANRBO[PA][D][F1!3!!!2!20]&pref=G

Btw, I just caught some of the Obama clips from the 60 Minutes interview. I'll just sum it up with one word: strange.

Toby Smith is back into SKF

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UltraShort Financials ProShares (SKF) -- Buy Under $100; aggressive buy below $90

While the bank stocks have run up, as if investors think all of their problems are behind them, the fact remains that the banks are fundamentally broken and the pain is far from over. On March 6, we sold SKF at $254. Now, we'll buy it back for under $100 and take another ride!

My smalls did well today, gold, silver, a few bio's and chemicals. Started slow, rose well, dropped back a little. Hell, even some of my oil and gas stocks were up.

I was tempted to buy SKF, but didn't.

Some people don't believe the government announcement that the banks are looking rosy again and the economy is picking up. The home mortgage situation may be bottoming out, but commercial real estate and business loan problems are coming down the pike. We might start hearing about that next week. Just a hunch.

Tobin Smith has been clueless for a long time, but the timing on SKF was one of the worst calls I've seen yet by a newsletter honcho.

Is Wells Fargo like the rest of the banks?

Commentary: Unlike most banks, Wells avoided the subprime market
By MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:30 PM ET 4/9/09

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Wells Fargo & Co.'s projected blowout quarter is helping to spur a banking rally, but the banking bulls should hold their breath -- Wells is hardly like the rest of U.S. banks.

Wells (WFC) announced Thursday profits of about $3 billion, or 55 cents a share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet Research are expecting, on average, profits of 31 cents a share. Wells said total revenue for the quarter to be $20 billion and would grow by an estimated 16%.

Wells shares rose more than 20% in morning trading, but more telling, the KBW Philadelphia Bank Index (BKX) was down 1.5%.

Of the nation's biggest banks, Wells has operated from a position of strength because of the soundness of its balance sheet. While rivals such as Washington Mutual Inc., Countrywide Financial and Golden West aggressively loaned to home buyers, Wells kept its traditional standards for the most part. When the credit crisis was eroding those banks' balance sheets last year, Wells was improving its Tier 1 capital levels.

Wells posted a profit of $2.66 billion in 2008.

The result? Wells now stands along with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) as the national banks that are able play the role of rescuer as the industry goes through upheaval.

Wells' biggest problem right now is the former Wachovia Corp. franchise it bought last year for $15.1 billion. That bank was saddled with billions of dollars in mortgage losses and is partly the reason Wells had to write down $3.3 billion in the first three months of the year. The good news: Wells expects to start talking about savings and benefits from the Wachovia deal after the second quarter.

With most banks stocks flat or sinking Thursday, the Wells euphoria appears to be contained. That's appropriate, considering Wells and its profits stand out in an industry where keeping up with your neighbors means getting your fair share of government cash.

The plot sickens

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Wells Fargo May Need $50 Billion in Capital, KBW Says

By Ari Levy

April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co., the second- biggest U.S. home lender, may need $50 billion to pay back the federal government and cover loan losses as the economic slump deepens, according to KBW Inc.’s Frederick Cannon.

KBW expects $120 billion of “stress” losses at Wells Fargo, assuming the recession continues through the first quarter of 2010 and unemployment reaches 12 percent, Cannon wrote today in a report. The San Francisco-based bank may need to raise $25 billion on top of the $25 billion it owes the U.S. Treasury for the industry bailout plan, he wrote.

First-quarter net income rose 50 percent to about $3 billion, Wells Fargo said last week in announcing preliminary results that topped the most optimistic Wall Street estimates and sparked a 32 percent jump in the stock. The bank attributed the profit to a surge in mortgage originations and revenue from Wachovia Corp., acquired in December. Full results are scheduled for April 22.

“Details were scarce and we believe that much of the positive news in the preliminary results had to do with merger accounting, revised accounting standards and mortgage default moratoriums, rather than underlying trends,” wrote Cannon, who downgraded the shares to “underperform” from “market perform.” “We expect earnings and capital to be under pressure due to continued economic weakness.”
...

Merger accounting allows assets to be recorded at fair value when the acquisition is completed. These assets can flow thru the inc statement later. I can see the assessments of these asset values changing during the period and potential gains flowing through to the inc statement.