Investors cheered following the release of the Labor Department’s employment report on Friday, which showed that the number of jobs shed in February was less-than-expected. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7.
Expectations of steeper job losses due to terrible weather conditions during the month were unfulfilled following the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report [...]

Office-products retailer Staples Incorporated (SPLS) posted on Tuesday a drop in fourth-quarter earnings of 18%, citing continued weakness in corporate spending. Staples said weak spending in the business sector is most likely to continue.
Business customers “remained cautious with discretionary purchases,” Ron Sargent, chief executive officer, commented during a conference call following the earnings report [...]

Since 2000, gold prices recorded nine consecutive years of gains, while gold stocks moved higher in fits and starts to trade nearly 10 times higher from the bottom of the HUI Index registered in 2001. Investors who loaded up on blue chip gold mining stocks early in the prior decade made a 10-bagger return.
Junior [...]

Lately, stocks aren’t trading with any rhyme or reason that many participants expect fits reality. Stock prices oftentimes don’t move in the direction of changing fundamentals, either markets end in a crash or trade at extremely lofty levels from time to time, but these boom-bust characteristics at least have a constant and predictable theme and [...]