Today started out as one of those positive days again as the investment climate appeared to be getting better. Then the unemployment data came out, and frankly it wasn't really as bad as one would expect. But shortly after 10:00 AM, we saw profit takers come into the market. In fact, even oil traders ran oil up after shorts covered after a good week of selling Texas Tea; oil closed up $3.82 at $116.34.

Below are the unofficial closing levels for major US index levels:

• DJIA 13,051.36 (+41.36; +0.32%)
• S&P500 1,413.96 (+4.62; +0.33%)
• NASDAQ 2,476.14 (-4.57; -0.18%)
• 10YR-TBond 3.845% (+0.096)

Agrium Inc. (NYSE: AGU) was a winner with shares up almost 5% at $82.25 in the last minutes of the day. The agricultural nutrients supplier beat earnings, and this gave some pause to the selling in the potash and fertilizer stock selling that had been seen this week.

Nortel (NYSE:NT) is up over 8% on strong earnings.

Force Protection (NASDAQ:FRPT) is trading higher 14% on a new contract from the UK.

Investools (NASDAQ:SWIM) is off almost 26% on news that the SEC is conduting an informal inquiry.

NetSuite (NYSE:N) is down over 15% after posting weak quarterly numbers.

Stocks may trade differently in the pre-market than they do in the regular session.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Financial journalism is all about breaking news. News is easily researchable and journalists feel comfortable voicing their opinions. But the truth is that most news -- no matter how fabulous a company's PR firm makes it sound -- usually means little to a company's stock (it's more about the market's expectations, something that is not very researchable).

And that's why I prefer to write about companies whose stock charts are breaking out, as I have with Mercadolibre (NASDAQ: MELI) here, Solarfun (NASDAQ: SOLF) here, INVESTools (NASDAQ: SWIM) here and TheStreet.com (NASDAQ: TSCM) here (all of which are nicely, and somewhat predictably, higher) and LDK Solar (NASDAQ: LDK) here (which, in my defense, never reached my breakout price of $77; instead it tanked, exemplifying the risks involved with buying stocks before breakouts). After all, while it's fun to learn about breaking news and new products, it's even more fun to profit from the stock market (my apologies to all financial journalists, but you guys just aren't traders)!

It's not easy to top a present like TheStreet.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSCM), but my next holiday stock pick does just that. I give you investor education cum brokerage firm INVESTools Inc. (Nasdaq: SWIM). It's a pretty cool business model that aims to teach people to invest via seminars, getting some juicy upfront fees and reaping the rewards over time through commissions and fees, if they are successful in their teachings.

Besides having a booming stock – which, after a nasty 50% mid-year drop, this week is breaking out to new all-time highs – an incredible trading platform that I use for my own trading and big time investors known for discovering undervalued smallcap stocks, this company has some serious growth. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find another company in the finance arena with numbers that are even in the same ballpark.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: HealthSpring (HS), CoPart (CPRT), Multi Fineline Electronix (MFLX) and Global Traffic Network (GNET) were today's noteworthy initiations:

• HealthSpring (NYSE: HS) was initiated with a Neutral rating and $20 target at Banc of America, as the firm doesn't expect earnings growth to recover until 2009.

• Rochdale Research started CoPark (NASDAQ: CPRT) with a Buy and $36 target yesterday. The firm said CoPark is in an excellent competitive position and expects growth to re-accelerate as the company integrates and expands its non-U.S. platform.

• Needham reinstated shares of Multi Fineline Electronix (NASDAQ: MFLX) with a Buy rating and $13 target, as the firm believes the current valuation overly discounts the company's opportunities with Sony-Ericsson (SNE/ERIC), Apple (AAPL), and the likelihood of stability at Motorola (MOT).

• Oppenheimer initiated shares of Global Traffic Network (NASDAQ: GNET) with a Buy rating and $9.50 target as the firm believes the company's expansion into new territories such as Canada and the UK should enable double-digit revenue and cash flow growth for the long term.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Goldman Sachs reinstated shares of Qiagen (NASDAQ: QGEN) with a Neutral rating.

• Raymond James initiated shares of Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) with an Outperform rating and $275 target.

• NexCen Brands (NASDAQ: NEXC) was started at Lazard with a Buy rating.

• BMO Capital initiated shares of INVESTools (NASDAQ: SWIM) with an Outperform rating.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).