-Executive Summary-

• UP!  The broader market (SP 500), the DOW (DJ-30), and the NASDAQ were all UP today – particularly strongly at the open – but the strength waned as the day progressed.
• The Department of Labor’s “Job’s Report” = Non-Farm Payroll Report for April was very favorable.  See more below.
• Learn what “U-6” is a measure of … Below.
• Commodities bounced a little, but were taken back down when a rumor about Greece leaving the European Monetary Union emerged.  Now that would shake things up!  See more below.
• At the Stock Market Companion we SOLD ALL OUR STOCK HOLDINGS TODAY AND HEADED TO 100% CASH.  We are apprehensive that we are not fulfilling our primary objective of engaging the market when the odds of success are stacked in our favor.  We want to give this market some time to reveal its intentions and decided this afternoon to use today’s strength in the market to “Clear the Slate.”  Keep in mind, this is simply our position here at the Stock Market Companion.  Others may share a different view.  In all cases we recommend making sure that prudent stops are in place.  It may be that Cisco, Dell, Ford, and Nexxus each will move higher.  We are simply uncertain right now and need a better vantage point.  More below.
• Here is a video interview of a father and son using the Stock Market Companion successfully together – as a teaching and investing tool.
  

– Stock Market Companion – Current Holdings –

Nr.	Co.	Ticker	Action	Entry Date	Current Gain (Loss)
1	Nexxus Lighting	NEXS	Sold (Miniscule Holding) Today	3/18/2011	-24.1%
2	Dell Inc.	DELL	Sold Today	3/21/2011	+6.9%
3	Ford Motor Co.	F	Sold Today	4/1/2011	-4.2%
4	Cisco Systems, Inc.	CSCO	Sold Today	4/25/2011	+3.3%
5	Proshares Ultra-Short Silver ETF	ZSL	Sold Holdings Wednesday and Previous Day.	5/2/2011	+17.6% (Lion’s Share) +26% (“Runner”)

If the above “Current Holdings” table is empty it means that we are not holding ANY stocks at this time and that we are therefore 100% in cash.

– Markets “At a Glance” –

(Please scroll down to the end of the report to see your favorite benchmarks – Dollar, Oil, Gold … closing prices and daily direction.)

Market	Price (Today’s Close)	Unit of Measure	Today’s Direction
SP-500	1,340.20	Index	UP = +5.10 points
DOW-30	12,638.74	Index	UP = +54.57 points
NASDAQ	2,827.56	Index	UP =+12.84 points
NASDAQ 100	2,383.18	Index	UP = +7.97 points

– Market Trends –

Trend	SP-500	DJ-30	NASDAQ	NASDAQ 100
Short Term	Down	Down	Down	Down
Intermediate	UP	UP	UP	UP
Long Term	Lateral	Lateral	Lateral	Lateral

*Summary of terms from Trader Vic II-Principles of Professional Speculation (pg. 140-141)
*_________* Represents a change in trend rating.

– Market Perspectives –

For your added perspective, we’ve included this chart of the broader market (Successful stock investors develop and start with a minds-eye view of the broader market and keep it clear) –

1. SMC SP-500 ETF Daily Chart (Click to open helpful chart in a separate browser window).

– Today’s Highlights –

To everyone’s surprise the “jobs-report” = U.S. Department of Labor Non-Farm Payroll Report for April was favorable with an additional 244,000 jobs added for the month.  The official number of unemployed persons = 13.7 million.  The official unemployment rate is 9.0%.  Click here for the full Department of Labor Report.

Here’s a measure that few understand.  It’s listed in the Alternative measures of labor underutilization in the above report.  Click here for this specific Table A-15 measure.  In this table, you will find the measure labelled “U-6” = Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed.  Currently this rate stands at +15.9%, and is – in our estimation at Stock Market Companion – a clearer picture of our overall U.S. employment situation.

Apple, Inc. has done a fantastic job creating iPods, iPhones, iPads, Macs…  but Apple only employs approx. 10,000 people in America.   There are over 600,000 (six hundred thousand) employees at Foxconn in China where electronics are made for Apple, Dell, Hewlett Packard…

Last summer we linked you to an excellent article by former Intel CEO Andy Grove, explaining what America needed to do to create jobs.  Click here for this excellent article from Businessweek. This is excellent reading for everyone, but especially for those using our work here to teach their children about investing and business.  It will provide a lot of fuel for excellent table-talk concerning our nation, our economy, and jobs.

The market shot enormously higher on this news…with the DOW (DJ-30) reaching +175 pts., before giving a large portion of the gains back.

Commodities bounced a little, but were thrown under the bus again as a rumor emerged that the German news magazine Der Spiegel (German Time Mag. Equivalent) was putting together a report that Greece may be considering leaving the European Monetary Union.  Commodities were crushed, because the U.S. dollar vaulted higher on this rumor.  A EU member state leaving the monetary union would certainly be a huge blow to the euro – at least initially.

– Story-Stock Investing –

Yesterday we noted that we wanted to introduce to you the Chinese Facebook equivalent today – which had its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the New York Stock exchange.  The company is called Renren, Inc.  (Ticker: RENN).  Click here for a good article highlighting some of its characteristics – and importantly – differences between the Chinese market – which has several different firms offering competing products – and the U.S. where Facebook completely dominates.   We are interested in this company because we all know that social networking is huge and still in its infancy in terms of how businesses are using it to reach customers.  We also know that Facebook is very powerful, but NOT publicly traded – although Goldman Sachs did issue shares of Facebook to privileged shareholders recently.

Now – RENN opened on Wednesday for trading here in the U.S. and we watched it.  It shot for a brief moment to $24 (we’re talking in one second at the open) and then proceeded to sink like a rock to $18.61.  It then advanced to $20/share and sold off for the rest of the day down to $18.  Yesterday it sank to $16 and closed today at $16.75/share.  Any unfortunate investor who purchased it at $24/share is feeling like they were “taken” on this one, as they now sit -30% upside down on their investment.  On IPO’s we are cautious.  We prefer to have nice tight price patterns that are predictable because there is a history of daily price action to look at.  What you want is for a new stock to have experienced “price discovery” – which is a way of saying that buyers and sellers have each had sufficient time to engage the stock, pushing the price around until  a certain price stability has been achieved.  Then you can take real earnings and forecast earnings to calculate current price/earnings based on current pricing,  gauge underlying buying volume of the stock and characteristics of price movement at key resistance and support levels to see if there is a good reason to purchase the stock.  Doing anything else with an IPO is simply speculation.

Today we sold all our Stock Market Companion stock holdings – Dell, Cisco, Ford, and Nexxus Lighting.  We want to simply back off this market and use today’s bounce to achieve a better exit that we would have had yesterday.  There are many confusing cross-currents at the moment.  We feel that simply holding stocks right now goes against our key principle of engaging the market when the chances of success are stacked in our favor.  Maybe we will feel differently this next week.  We are unquestionably bullish on Cisco and Ford and may re-establish our positions there soon.  Other profitable opportunities will reveal themselves.  For instance, we like how Amarin Corp. PLC (Ticker: AMRN) is building a nice higher plateau, after jumping +90% two weeks ago on good news about its cholesterol / triglyceride (fat) fighting development drug.

Click here for our SMC chart of where Ford Motor Co. is today.

We sent out this SMC Intra-Day Alert –

Dear Subscriber-Friend –

Our underlying principle is to engage the markets when the odds are stacked in our favor.

Today the markets bounced higher on what appears to be a favorable jobs report.  Within the last 2 hours we heard of a rumor that a leading German newsmagazine is reporting that there are considerations taking place for Greece to leave the European Monetary Union.  Topics like this are designed to sell a lot of print, and may or may not be true.  But from a market standpoint they point toward uncertainty.

Market internals combined with commodities falling hard, the end of “quantitative easing” approaching, and strong selling in the market following Monday morning’s good news about Osama Bin Laden has led to our decision to COMPLETELY sell all our holdings.  The DOW is now -140 points off its multi-year highs achieved on Monday.  We are going to use today’s bounce to exit on more favorable terms than yesterday.

The market is simply not stacked in our favor at this time.  We may find ourselves quickly re-establishing our position in Cisco or Ford … or engaging other exciting opportunities that come along … like Amarin Corp…. Until that point however, we are raising 100% cash.

As individual stock investors, we have the advantage of choosing when to be engaging the markets and when to be in cash.

We realize that we are closing our position in Ford and NEXS at a loss.  This is a hard decision, but we are taking it.

For your protection and our own, we would like to remind everyone that this is not an investment recommendation for any particular individual.  We cannot possibly know the risk tolerance and investment suitability of such investments for any particular subscriber. Successful investors know their own objectives, purposes, and risks associated with any investment – whether in real estate, stocks, or other investments.  Each investor is on their own.
We are simply reporting the SMC actions in the market place.

Your – Stock Market Companion

At the Stock Market Companion we do not and cannot give individual investment advice. According to the State of Washington RCW 21.20.005 the Stock Market Companion is not a Registered Financial Advisor and we do not render any advice on the basis of the specific investment situation of a particular individual. This information is for a wide readership and is not intended for any particular individual,  and under no circumstances should our Market Update or Watchlist be considered an investment recommendation or plan for any specific individual.  By accessing this material, you agree that the Stock Market Companion will not be held liable for any actions taken by a subscriber or other parties.  Please seek the council of a broker or other licensed investment professional for accurate pricing and concerning the suitability of all investments that you may be considering. Disclosure : You understand that the Stock Market Companion holds positions in the above mentioned securities.  Based on market related or personal events these positions may change without notice.

– Stock Market Companion – Performance –

Please click on this chart to see the Stock Market Companion 15MinuteStocks stock performance versus the SP-500.  It will open in a separate browser window.
* Gains (losses) do not include brokerage fees.   Our returns are very strong … BUT …  WE have to remind everyone just like all other financial sites in America – Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Returns.  Unlike others however, our objective is to teach you to be able to make these types of strong returns On Your Own.

All of the investments – stocks, entries, and exits are listed on our Stock Market Companion Watchlist at the bottom of the spreadsheet, in the section labelled Former Holdings.

– Benchmarks “At a Glance” –

US Dollar	1.4312 USD = 1 Euro	USD / EUR	Dollar = Continued higher.
Gold	$1,491.60	Ounce	Gold = Modest bounce higher.
Oil	$98.06	Barrel (West Texas Crude)	Oil = Down farther.
30 Yr. Fixed Mortgage	4.69%	Percent	Flat
10 Yr. Bond Yield	3.15	Percent	Flat
1 Yr. CD	1.16	Percent	Flat

Data Source : Financial Visualizations Inc.

Please help us by sending your valuable feedback to – Support@stockmarketcompanion.com

Signing-Off for Today,

Your -Stock Market Companion

** Stock Market Companion Disclaimer **

The Stock Market Companion (SMC) Market Update and Watchlist are published documents to subscribers that show how we (SMC) are viewing the markets and what we are watching, investing in or selling today.  This information is for a wide readership and is not intended for any particular individual,  and under no circumstances should this Market Update or Watchlist be considered an investment recommendation or plan for any specific individual.  By accessing this material, you agree that the Stock Market Companion will not be held liable for any actions taken by a subscriber or other parties.  You understand that the Stock Market Companion holds positions in the above mentioned securities.  Based on market related or personal events these positions may change without notice.

Furthermore, the Stock Market Companion, Inc. is a content provider and publisher and not a registered broker-dealer or licensed investment professional.  Our intent is to publish very accurate market information for an audience of subscribers (1000+ subscribers).  By accessing the Stock Market Companion website and/or using the Stock Market Companion products and services such as this Market Update and accompanying Watchlist, you understand and agree that the material provided in the Stock Market Companion products and services is for informational and educational purposes only, and that no mention of a particular security in a Stock Market Companion product or service constitutes a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold that or any other security, or that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person.  To the extent any of the information contained in any Stock Market Companion product or service may be deemed to be investment advice, such information is impersonal and not tailored to the investment needs of any specific person.  Before selling or buying any stock or other investment you should consult with a qualified broker or other financial professional to verify pricing information and to solicit advice as to the appropriateness of a given transaction or investment.