We all get a lot of junk electronic advertising and this week at AD:tech New York Acxiom Corp (ACXM) showcased many of their new products that make electronic advertising more targeted. ACXM warrants is today's addition to my Wall Street Survivor portfolio. ACXM integrates data, services and technology to create and deliver customer and information management solutions for many of the largest, most respected companies in the world. The core components of Acxiom's innovative solutions are Customer Data Integration technology, data, database services, IT outsourcing, consulting and analytics, and privacy leadership. Acxiom integrates data, services and technology to create innovative, real-time solutions that improve customer relationships and grow the bottom line. In a complicated IT world, they make it simple.

The fundamentals on this company look good. Both Todd Van Fleet of First Analysis and Daniel Leben of Robert W. Baird & Co. give the stock high marks. The analysts consensus is that although there may be modest growth in revenue of 3.7% year over year a positive earnings growth of 38.8% plus a more generous P/E growth as the market recovers should show good price appreciation. There have also been several positive articles recently on BusinessWire to create more buzz.

I really thought we had all paid our dues on this subprime mortgage fiasco by the big hit we all took in our investments in banks, securities firms, CMOs and mortgaged back bonds. Just when I thought it was all over I read an article by Tara Servatius in Creative Loafing titled "Mops Away! : Meet you subprime lender". Her article frightens the heck out of me.

In the article she shares how now that the banks and mortgage origination scum aren't taking advantage of the poor folk, our Fed agencies FHA, Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) have taken up the slack. Most of the home sales in Charlotte have been under $130,00 and take advantage of the $8,000 tax first time home buyer tax credit.

I think we all agree the economy, though weak, is in recovery. Emerging companies will need help implementing their new computer systems and Financial Tides thinks Tyler Technologies (TYL) might be the one to help companies and governmental agencies with their IT implementations.

Per Yahoo Finance, TYL provides integrated information management solutions and services for local governments in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom. The company's financial management systems include modules for general ledger, budget preparation, fixed assets, requisitions, purchase orders, bid management, accounts payable, contract management, accounts receivable, investment management, inventory control, project and grant accounting, work orders, job costing, GASB 34 reporting, payroll, and human resources. It also offers specialized products that automate various city functions, including municipal courts, parking tickets, equipment and project costing, animal licenses, business licenses, permits and inspections, code enforcement, citizen complaint tracking, ambulance billing, fleet maintenance, and cemetery records management, as well as provides utility billing solutions, student information systems, and applications to manage pension funds.

On Financial Tides I usually don't look at small speculative stocks but the technicals on this are too good to pass. Please follow my stop loss recommendation.

As described on Yahoo Finance: NXT Nutritionals Holdings, Inc. (NXTH.OB) through its subsidiary, NXT Nutritionals, Inc., develops and markets alternative sweetening systems, and other food and beverage products. Its products include SUSTA Nectar, a table top sweetener alternative; SUSTA ingredient for beverages, cereals, baked goods, dairy products, candies, and chewing gums; and NXT/SUSTA branded products, including beverages, water, nutritional bars, and supplements, as well as Healthy Dairy smoothies that are SUSTA-enhanced yogurt smoothies. SUSTA is a low glycemic index nutritional sweetening system, which is a blend of inulin fiber, fructose, botanical extracts, natural flavors, vitamins, minerals, and probiotics. The company is based in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

If there is anyone under 30 in your household, just ask them about Skechers USA (SKX).

This company has captured the hearts and minds of the youth of America and should catch your interest as an investment, too. It makes shoes that kids (and the young at heart) want, marketing through Nordstrom (JWN), Macy's (M), Dillard's (DDS), J C Penny (JCP) and Foot Locker (FL). Just look at any sales circular in the newspaper and you will see ads for their product.

I was going through the stack of newspapers that had accumulated while I was on vacation, and on the front page of The Charlotte Observer was the headline: "Cameron Harris sues Wachovia."

This is big news in Charlotte, where Harris' family sold their insurance company to Wachovia's predecessor, First Union. Friends just don't sue friends around here; bless his heart.

The whole world seems to be fixated on the economy and the H1N1 Swine Flu. News reports yesterday that the first shipments of the nasal version of the vaccine, manufactured by MedImmune, a unit of AstraZeneca (AZN), will begin Tuesday pushed me to find out if there might be an investing play in this fear. The major manufacturers of the vaccine are GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Sanofi-Aventis (SNY), Novartis (NVS), AstraZeneca (AZN), Baxter Intl (BAX) and CSL Ltd (CMXHY.PK). None of these are pure plays. Each of these companies has a stable of drugs and products so you are really buying a basket of widely varied profit centers. How do I find the best one?

First, I always go to BarChart for technical analysis to find which stock is moving right now. BarChart uses a combination of 13 different technical analysis indicators and then uses an average to see which has the most votes. The ratings were from a low for AZN of 40% SELL to a high for NVS with a 96% BUY, so for me it's easy to see which one warrants further review.

HSN Inc. (HSNI) known by most of you as the Home Shopping Network was added to my Wall Street Survivor portfolio and is covered on my blog Financial Tides. What caught my eye was 17 new highs in 20 trading sessions and press releases that they will be carrying Serious Skin Care's FIRMA-FACE XP product line. This is their largest product launch to date with 103,000 units sold in the first 4 day. Landenburg Thalmann announced that they have initiated coverage of this stock with a BUY recommendation.

HSNI is a retailer and interactive lifestyle network offering a broad range of products through TV home shopping programming and on the Internet through HSN.com. They are the leader in the TV home shopping industry far out selling Value Vision (VVTV) and privately held QVC and Access Television Network.

Even with the recent market pull back I still feel that utilities are a safe bet, Avista Corp (AVA) among them. This stock is a position in my Marketocracy New High Fund and followed on my blog Financial Tides.

AVA is a diversified energy company with operations throughout the US. With both regulated and non-regulated energy businesses plus some other non-regulated businesses they seem to be well diversified. Their main utilities divisions distribute electricity from hydroelectric and thermal sources. The non-regulated businesses are in metal fabrication, expense management systems for utilities and real estate.

Last week I wrote a blog titled "Recession over? Tell the bankrupt and unemployed". I took a lot of flack from readers saying that I picked a lagging economic indicator and was unfair in my criticism of the Fed's press release. For those of you who followed me in the 2008 Strategy Lab you might remember that I always looked forward to and commented on The Conference Board's US Business Cycle Indicators. Just like I look at BarChart every week to get a read on the short, mid and long term market movement, I look at the Conference Board to give me the Leading, Coincident and Lagging economic indicators.

The latest report is dated September 21, 2009 and has the Leading Economic Index (LEI) up 0.6%, the Coincident Economic Index (CEI) unchanged and the Lagging Economic Indicator (LAG) down 0.1%. How do we interpret this data? When I taught Graduate School I told the students to think of the economy as a roller coaster with 21 cars.

The aerospace and defense industry might not seem like a great play but there are still a lot of orders in the pipeline that have to be filled. As the economy recovers, some of the suppliers and developers of this industry should see many new orders. One of the biggest recipients of those new orders will be Esterline Technologies Corp (ESL). This stock has been a position in my Financial Tides blog S&P Small Cap Fund on Marketocracy.

Recently they elevated Brad Lawrence to be CEO and he has great plans for this engineering, manufacturing and supplier to defense, commercial aerospace and general industry The main products are GPS technology and display equipment. The are a major supplier to Boeing (BA), Lockheed (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOC), General Dynamics (GD) and Raytheon (RTN). As the industry goes so goes ESL.

At the end of each week on my blog Financial Tides I like to analyze what the market did by using several ways to evaluate the trend. There is some tracking error in each method which is why I like to use several and then compare the results of each to get a consensus. I use BarChart to get all my data.

Value Line Index - This is an arithmetic index of 1700 stocks followed by Value Line. I like an arithmetic index because it duplicates the way most individuals purchase stocks. You buy 10 or 20 stocks with equal dollar amounts of each. Professionals and mutual funds might weight by market cap but most individuals don't.

Today all you read about is Health Care. One of the ways to control Health Care costs is to use drugs instead of surgery and hospitalization. The new Health Care Plan will have a very large drug benefit in it no matter what form it takes. One of the drug companies continuing to hit new highs is Bioscrip (BIOS).

BIOS's product is comprehensive pharmaceutical care solution through the use of specialty medication distribution systems and clinical management services. They fall in the Retail Drug Store sector and have major competition from Rite Aid (RAD), Herbalife (HLF), Walgreens (WAG) and CVS (CVS).

Genworth Financial (GNW) has been featured on my blog Financial Tides, has been in my Jim Van Meerten/BarChart S&P 500 fund on Marketocracy for a few weeks and has been a great performer lately. GNW is a comeback story. Lately some of the rating agencies have given them a bad rap, but we know the poor record the rating agencies have had recently.

GNW is in the "Lifestyle Protection" business. That's the new fancy name for insurance that protects income: Life Annuities, Disability, Long Term Care and Life Insurance. It has some major competition in Allianz (AZ), ING, AIG & AXA. The whole industry is poised to make a comeback because of a flight from securities to safety and as the investment climate brightens so should GNW's bottom-line.

Baidu (BIDU) is the leading Chinese language Internet search engine. It has been in my Jim Van Meerten/BarChart New High model portfolio on Marketocracy for some time and I have written about it on my blog Financial Tides. I add stocks to my New High Fund when I see stocks trading over 100K per day that continue to hit new highs.

BIDU's main competition in the Chinese market is SINA and SOHU. BIDU has 545M in revenue while SOHU has 485M and SINA 372M. Why do I like BIDU above the others?

At the close of each week I try to evaluate on Financial Tides the Stock Market's Momentum by looking at some key indicators I've learned to trust that are published on BarChart. I have no crystal ball and I'm not a Technical Analyst that thinks he can interpret the tea leaves and the alignment of the stars and predict the future. I use a common sense approach to see if the Stock Market is trending up or down, determine how strong and how long that trend has continued and cross my fingers it will continue. Sometimes it's good to be in the Market, sometimes it feels better to sit this week out. Let's see what happened this week.

Momentum of the Value Line Index - I use this index because it is a broad based index of about 1700 stocks and covers about 95% of the US Stock Market capitalization

For my Financial Tides readers I always try to find companies that are getting attention now and will show price movement immediately. One of the easiest ways to find such companies is to screen for companies hitting the most new highs using BarChart. Wednesday evening I found a company that has hit 14 new highs in the last 20 trading session for a monthly gain of 52.08%.

That company is Nighthawk Radiology Holdings (NHWK). The company is one of the leading providers of overnight and off hour radiology services for hospitals, clinics and imaging centers and should get increased revenue if the new health care plan is implemented.

Zenith National Insurance Corp. (ZNT) is a pure recovery play. The stock is depressed for 2 reasons: 1- As payrolls in the manufacturing sector contracted so did the underlining payroll insurance premiums and 2 - like all insurance companies they make money investing on the time spread between the time they collect premiums and the time they pay benefits.

When the economy recovers, the investment portfolios should increase in value and when new workers are hired premiums should increase.

Recently, I wanted to learn more about blogging so I went on my public library's on-line card catalogue and entered the subject: "blogging". I ordered 6 or 7 different titles to try to find the best one. One of the titles was "Blogging for DUMMIES" by Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley. Although it was a paperback and had a yellow and black comic book looking cover complete with a "Where's Waldo" look-a-like character on the front it really turned out to be the best of all the books on the subject. It was so good that I decided to take the Barnes & Noble (BKS) gift card my daughter gave me for Christmas and actually purchase the book because it was really a step by step guide to blogging that even I could understand.

When I got to the Barnes & Noble Bookstore I figured it would be in the computer section and with the black and yellow cover with the Waldo cartoon face easy to find. As I looked in the bookshelf it appeared that every 4th book on the shelf had a "DUMMIE" cover and each was on a different subject.