I never believed in green shoots - they were always brown at best - and now they are turning black and will stay black through 2010. As I write this Larry Kudlow is screaming, telling viewers and suckers to essentially ignore very disappointing retail sales data and invest based on consumer confidence. Well, pal, consumer confidence is still negative - just not as negative as it was - we all know that - but it is headed south again. C'mon, Zucker, do you really want ratings that badly? Remember what you want badly, you get badly.

Where was I? Oh, black shoots. My newsletter, ChangeWave Shorts, is published by Investor Place Media and we have an in house brand - ChangeWave - and in house survey group that has been doing sentiment surveys on everything from consumer purchases to oil exploration budgets for eight years plus. And they survey the same people, enabling them to create and use great baseline data. And they are never wrong - truly - my interpretation of their results may be wrong, but the data is always spot on and typically weeks if not months ahead of other data gatherers.

Netflix (NFLX) has been a favorite short target of Stone Fox for a while. Luckily we've never engaged in more than short term short positions on this stock as it's been one of the bright performers during this recession. The recession and high gas prices have in fact likely helped business as consumers have migrated to the cheapest forms of entertainment - DVD rentals via mail. It saves gas and eliminates late fees, all for a low monthly subscription fee.

Getting DVDs via the mail is clearly a doomed business as even highlighted by the CEO in this Wall Street Journal interview. It's actually pretty incredible that the business model as done so well considering the huge competition in the DVD rental space and the fact that renting by mail was actually seen as a step back for that market. After all, why wait days for a item via the mail when you could just stop at the local store and pick up whatever you wanted and the price of $2-4 per rental didn't seem overly costly? That's where the catch for the current and future business models comes in.

In this week’s Barron’s cover story “Shorts Story” they report on a small North Carolina-based research firm called Short Alert who have been recommending stocks to short since 1998.

Stocks that are lesser known offer many of the best investment opportunities as people fail to accurately price the security, and lack of Analyst coverage on the Street does not pin any valuation price target.

However, simple valuation metrics compared to industry and market averages allow any investor to find disconnects to take advantage of as a longer term investment.

There are so many stocks that are just below where I want to short them; we have about 8 stop limit orders and all were within spitting range at the peak Thursday, but none hit - so I am going to make a reach with Las Vegas Sands (LVS)

I've had a limit short order for peer Wynn Resorts (WYNN) sitting here just over $34 but it's not biting; intraday high of $33.40.

I wrote Wednesday in [Bookkeeping: Stopped Out of some Quality Systems (QSII) and Priceline.com (PCLN)]

I have a feel all these positions might reverse themselves back up if the market cooperates.

cBeyond's (CBEY) stock price is failing fast. The TTM net margin is already near zero. This means it is actually below zero currently (i.e. the company is losing money). It had an operating loss both of the last two quarters. The churn rate has increased from less than 1% per month to 1.5% per month (i.e. from <10% to 18% per year). It was 1.3% in the 2008 year ago quarter. This means the average retention beyond the original contract date has been shortened by almost 3 years to 2 years and 7 months. The company says the churn rate is stable now, but in this environment it could easily go to 2.0% per month (24% annualized). This would make CBEY lose even more money.

cBeyond, Inc. is a small player in a “big boy” niche. It provides managed Internet protocol-based communications services to small businesses in the United States. Its services include local and long distance voice services, broadband Internet access, mobile voice and data, email, voicemail, Web hosting, secure backup and file sharing, fax-to-email, virtual private network, and other communications and information technology (IT) services.

Commerzbank (CRZBY.PK) had an initial lift from good news on Tuesday. “The German government plans to loosen capital rules which will help financial institutions.” reported Reuters. The change should help Commerzbank, as it has weak asset quality. It should also bolster its capital ratios which in turn will help the bank increase lending volumes.

The short base for Commerzbank (as measured by Percent Shares Outstanding on Loan) has risen 11.23% over the past month and now stands at 9.71%. This is roughly 8% below the 52 Week high of 10.59% which was hit on April 3rd 2009. The short base for Commerzbank is higher than other German Financial companies; Deutsche Postbank (2.1%), Deutsche Bank (DB) (6%) and Allianz (AZ) (3.5%).

Meredith Corporation (MDP), the media and publishing company, posted a 45% drop in fiscal Q3 profit back in late April. The company announces its fiscal Q4 earnings at the end of July.

The short base (as measured by Percent Shares Outstanding On Loan) is up nearly 20% on the week and currently stands at 11.25%. Since the beginning of June, MDP has seen a 17% drop in its stock price, while at the same time its Utilization (which measures supply and demand in the securities lending market) has increased 43% to just under 50% of all lendable stock on loan. The increase in Utilization has not just been down to an increase in the short base, we have seen a drop in the total supply of roughly 20% since January.

Air France-KLM (AKH) posted another month of declining passenger traffic, joining British Airways. Shares in Air France-KLM fell 2.1% yesterday on the news that this was the sixth consecutive month where passenger numbers were down. The number of passengers carried fell 7% to 6.4 million and the load factor, a measure of how full an airline's planes are, slipped to 80.3% from 81.4%.

The short base for Air France-KLM (as measured by Percent Shares Outstanding on Loan) has risen 22% over the past month and now stands at 9.07% below the 52 Week high of 10.58% which was hit on June 24th 2009. The short base for Air France-KLM is higher than other European airline companies; British Airways (5.5%), Deutsche Lufthansa (2.7%) and Austrian Airlines (0.1%).

By Chris.McKhann

Retail stocks are at a critical juncture at this point, and along with that comes the largest option trades of the day.

For certain key Bidz.com (BIDZ) insiders it seems that diamonds are not forever as they continue selling shares, while the company buys back its stock, faces a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into its accounting practices, and defends several lawsuits claiming securities and consumer fraud.

Company buys back stock while two key insiders sell their shares

On Monday the 13th of July, Fastenal Company (FAST) will announce their Q2 earnings numbers. Many believe that Obama’s stimulus bill will be beneficial to FAST as their products are so essential to nearly every kind of industrial and construction project.

Download the full report by clicking here.

The Average % Lent score across North American large and mid cap equities Decreased 1.25% to 1.29. The Average % Lent score across European large and mid cap equities decreased -5.84% this week to 0.82. The Average % Lent score across Japanese large and mid cap equities declined by 0.45% this week to 0.4.

To read detailed reports, please select from below;

Shorting TMX Group Inc. (TMXGF.PK) is one of 20 investment ideas that investors should consider over the next three months, according to RBC Capital Markets.

In the most recent quarterly "best ideas" report, analyst Geoffrey Kwan noted that TMX's current stock price does not reflect near-term risks, which include market share erosion, pricing pressure, regulation of market data fees; and a cost structure that may be too high in a more competitive environment.

By David Russell

Sigma Designs (SIGM) is down more than 13 percent from its recent high, allowing one trader to take profits and maintain a bet against the semiconductor company.