monsanto beat earnings estimates with a 54% leap in profits for the first quarter. This tells me the agriculture and seed business are pulling strong and may prove to be resiliant in the economic downturn. The stock is up 12% today as it popped in pre hours trading. From here I expedt a few days of flat if not down action then lookout as this entire sector surge upward as the broader market rallies. Most of the quality Agg names are up as a result. Agrium, CF, Mosaic are all resisting the selling see across the board for Wednesday. RIMM Research in motion is performing well today, this company continues to inovate and bring out new products and who could disagree leading edge tech will bring good returns in 09.

FSIN Fushin copperweld got my attention today as one of the better performers today. We had a great rally in a down market and the pops are worth noting because most of the money is going into longer term propositions.

Never underestimate the power of CNBC. This afternoon the market was in a slump things were headed south. Everything I follow was performing poorly and had been all day. Around 3pm one of the Nageriam twins, I think it was John, came on the air and said they like CHK(chesapeke natural gas) at these levels. As soon as he said that the stock shoot up like a rocket. There was no coincidental phenomenon here. This stock means something to me especially because I bought 500 shares at $50 in the middle of the summer when I thought it was oversold. Boy was I wrong! Then another 500 at $16.50. I folow this puppy every day and if I had not been watching CNBC today I would have had no idea why the thing shot up. Option monster buys options, hence the name. If option expiration just occurred woudn't there be a lot of option money looking for a home for the next 28 days? I don't know the performance history of option monster but my intuition tells me these guys don't fool around.

Check out gold this week. Newmont and Yamana are both bucking the trend of a down beat markrt.

I'm following BGU and BGZ closely and I anticipate more upward momentum in the bull component of this split. If BGU Breaks out over 40 we have a good chance of continuing up if we go below 30 we are in danger and must switch the focus to BGZ. Any move above or below these levels could indicate a change in direction. I'll be curios to see how this plays out

BTU, CHK, CLR . These are some of todays top performers. They all happen to be energy plays. Peabody energy, a coal name, is up 19% today. Chesapeak up 23%, Continental "oil and gas up 22.44%. Wow it didn't seem as if we would get a bouce so soon but I guess these names have been down so long it had to happen. There were some crucial inventory reports out today indicating an increase in crude reserves. I guess I need to study this more if I want to learn why it could have had an impact on these names.

I dont know how to react to my mutual fund company. They recently sold off top holdings in ATI and bought up Martin Marietta and Eastman Chemical. Am I gettig screwwed? I was just getting used to ATI and anticipated a slow recovery for this specialty metals co. Now I have to spend time to figure out why they are so crazy about. MLM has spiked in price recently and could be a huge "infrastructre" play. That's exactly what I'm worried about. Especially since S&P just downgraded it to crap.