Q: You published a note last month titled "S&P 750: The Bottom." What led to that conclusion? A: A few things caught our eye. One was that we started to have some very bad days in November but the market still recovered. On Dec. 5, the unemployment news was really terrible and yet the market recovered that day, with the S&P closing up 3.7%. To us, those are signs of a positive market where people are starting to look beyond the bad news. We also like it that stocks such as ExxonMobil [XOM] and Chevron [CVX] are starting to do very well, even though oil prices have dropped. That suggests to me that people were trying to get into the market via the back door, because you could put a lot of money to work in an Exxon or Chevron.

Q: You published a note last month titled "S&P 750: The Bottom." What led to that conclusion? A: A few things caught our eye. One was that we started to have some very bad days in November but the market still recovered. On Dec. 5, the unemployment news was really terrible and yet the market recovered that day, with the S&P closing up 3.7%. To us, those are signs of a positive market where people are starting to look beyond the bad news. We also like it that stocks such as ExxonMobil [XOM] and Chevron [CVX] are starting to do very well, even though oil prices have dropped. That suggests to me that people were trying to get into the market via the back door, because you could put a lot of money to work in an Exxon or Chevron.

Q: In your note about the market having bottomed you were concerned about growth stocks. Why is that? A: There is a lot of money in growth mutual funds and aggressive growth mutual funds. But today in the category of growth, you would be hard-pressed to find many stocks doing well. You once had the Nifty Fifty or some group of stocks considered to be in the growth category and where a lot of people were active. But today it is very hard to find names that are so categorized. In the past, they have been the focus of attention and been able to pull the rest of the market ahead. But nowadays, a stock like an IBM [IBM] is just another stock, and it doesn't have the glamour or the halo effect these stocks were given in the past.

Q: Where are you nibbling? A: We're willing to settle for 10% to 15% gains in a four- or five-day period, rather than buy and hold, because one quarter today can ultimately destroy a stock. For example, eBay [EBAY] was a growth stock until in the fourth quarter of 2004, when it missed its number, and since then it has gone off the charts. You can't just have a wonderful long-term perspective. We are willing to set up for 10% or 15% gains, especially in a short time period, because we've seen the markets reverse so often and so swiftly.

Q: How about a few quick stock picks? A: We have a little bit of a different perspective on General Electric [GE]. Given that it pays an 8% dividend, it has limited downside, though it is probably not going to make us a whole of money in the next three to six months. But if we don't make money on GE in the next 12 or 18 months, then we've got some real problems.

And we still like Amazon.com [AMZN]. It's a controversial name and the stock has had a difficult time, but we're encouraged by the success of its product known as the Kindle, an electronic book.

Another name we like is Hess [HES], an oil company. It's a solid company, and it has a very nice trading pattern between 42 or 43 and 50. We buy it low and try to sell it high.