The market is getting gently hammered today, but that only presents more opportunities from my perspective.

I am in Ixtapa, Mexico, nearing the conclusion of my first ever week long rest during a 35 year working career ... and counting. In some ways I am hoping to mold my future working environment from seashore to shining seashore -- all around the world -- taking advantage of modern technology. I am thinking of it as "have beach (+Internet), will travel."

"Not often discussed, all bonds have at least some interest-rate risk. And by and large, a bond or bond fund's risk is adequately measured by its stated 'duration'," says fund specialist Jim Lowell.

The editor of Fidelity Investor explains, "Even risk-free Treasury bonds do have market risk: they may not have any risk of default, but their prices are bid lower whenever interest rates are rising. In fact, the biggest risk to most types of bonds comes from higher interest rates.

"Interest rate risk hasn't been much of a concern since the end of the last rate hike binge back in 2006. However, it's the things we've forgotten to be concerned about which can bring the greatest downside surprises. There is now certainly a lot more room for rates to go up than for rates to go down.

The amount of nonsense I come across misleading readers, or simply providing bad advice, makes me cringe. Sometimes our own site presents such information like discussing penny stocks and technical analysis.

In general, I distinguish bad advice, misleading or misguided information from that regarding a stock idea that simply did not pan out, of which I have been guilty too -- all of us have hits and misses. However, a post I read on Seeking Alpha promoting gold, with suggestions of doom by tailoring the data to fit the theory. The author supported his point by back-testing only ten years to a known low water mark.

"As the global economy rebounds late this year or next year, demand for energy will rise again, sending prices of crude and natural gas higher," says growth and income expert Bryan Perry.

In his top-notch The Cash Machine, he explains, "With energy assets cheap by historical standards right now, I want to increase our exposure to LINN Energy LLC (NASDAQ: LINE), a best-in-class inflation hedge."

"Founded in 2003, LINN is an independent oil and gas Master Limited Partnership (MLP) that completed its initial public offering (IPO) in January 2006.

With oil treading-water well above the $90 mark, a production cut by the world's largest cartel, OPEC, at its March 5 meeting would be "disruptive and scandalous," according to one economist.

Economist Steve Affinito told BloggingStocks Monday the fact that oil surged more than $10 from a pullback to $86 after certain OPEC officials hinted at a spring production cut underscores the thin margin -- or safety cushion -- that exists between global oil supply and demand. Oil closed Monday up 42 cents to $99.23.

"OPEC says it's concerned about rising oil inventories this spring due to the sluggish U.S. economy but it conveniently forgets the small safety cushion. If markets were so well supplied as they say, oil prices wouldn't jump $5 or $10 every time an OPEC oil minister expresses the slightest concern about rising inventories," Affinito said. "The fact remains that although oil markets may be 'well supplied' there's very little margin for error or production break-downs in the international oil system."