Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET) said its profit fell due to higher expenses and warned the trend may continue.
• Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) topped Q2 earnings expectations, which sent shares higher.
• ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) lower Q2 earnings topped expectations, but revenue was also down.
• DreamWorks Animation Inc. (NYSE: DWA) posted flat Q2 earnings as it waits for the next big DVD release.
• First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) posted a better-than-expected profit but guidance sent shares lower.
• Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE: JEC) Q3 revenue missed estimates and it lowered its outlook.

It is very easy to make money in this market despite the headlines. Using options to capitalize on volatility combined with a long/short strategy can result in powerful returns.

For example, taking equal positions of my Top 10 Stocks for 2009 while at the same time selling equal amounts of my Top 10 Stocks to Avoid would generate a return of more than 10% year to date.

Given that trends once in place stay in place for some time, I am quite confident that these positions will be winners throughout the year. It is not too late to set up your trades using these suggestions as a guide.

Do not underestimate the power of a new administration in Washington. With the ability to spend a huge amount of dollars, team Obama can wield tremendous influence in the market.

Case in point is the stem cell space. It is widely expected that Obama will issue an executive order eliminating restrictions on stem cell research.

Stocks like StemCells Inc. (NASDAQ: STEM) and Geron Corp. (NASDAQ: GERN) have been moving higher since the inaugural.

Coincidentally, on Friday, GERN announced approval for human trials for its treatment of spinal chord injuries using stem cells. Both GERN and STEM were up big as a result.

Another space expected to do well under the Obama administration is construction. A massive stimulus plan is said to be coming in February. A key point of the plan will be to boost infrastructure spending.

The dollars will benefit companies like Fluor Corp. (NYSE: FLR) and Jacobs Engineering (NYSE: JEC). Unlike stem cells, the market has yet to move these stocks higher. FLR is down more than 10% and JEC is down nearly 18% so far this year.

At long last -- to this Democrat's view anyway -- Barack Obama is the president of the United States. Now, it's time to gaze into our crystal ball.

Obama has many things on his plate, including fixing the economy. Lots of people are trying to pick the winners and losers. Here are my guesses. Keep in mind that it may take several years for the impact of Obama's policies to be felt.

Defense: Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT), Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) and Raytheon Co. (NYSE: RTN) will benefit from the spending needed to replace worn-out military equipment from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama's push to improve health care technology. The defense contractors over the past few years have become huge government IT contractors and are experts at systems integration. Each have plunged by double-digits over the past year.

Healthy living: Call me an optimist but I expect the Obama administration to push healthier living and for greater control of health care. Hain Celestial Group Inc. (NASDAQ: HAIN), the largest provider of organic food, seems a likely beneficiary. Also, it's hard to see how he is going to be able to digitize health care records without the involvement of health insurers such as Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI). Hain is down 42% over the past 52 weeks, while Cigna has plunged more than 70%.

"Infrastructure stocks have been laid low by the economic downturn; but once massive government stimulus programs get growth going again, these companies should be among the surest winners," says Stephen Leeb.

In The Complete Investor newsletter, the advisor explains, "We've found four top infrastructure stocks, now at bargain-basement levels, that we think will surge. All are all astonishingly cheap when you consider how vital their role is in worldwide economic growth."

"It would be difficult to find a group of stocks more leveraged to economic growth yet whose valuations imply there will be no growth.

"If you have any faith in the world's future, these stocks are for you, and we think they will be dramatic outperformers as stimulus spending starts to kick in.

"Most diverse among the four is Jacobs Engineering (NYSE: JEC), which serves the chemical, pharmaceutical, building/infrastructure, and oil and gas industries. Nearly 20% of its revenues come from government sources, domestic and foreign.

"The company has nominal debt and has been generating hefty free cash flow, which management has indicated it may use to acquire beaten-down compatible firms, adding to future growth.

Now that Senator Obama is President-elect Obama, what will he do with the economy and how can you profit from it? One way is to look for stocks that will benefit from a part of his proposed economic stimulus plan -- the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that would spend $60 billion over 10 years on roads, bridges, ports, airports and rail lines.

One company that could benefit from this investment would be Jacobs Engineering (NYSE: JEC), which engineers municipal infrastructure. The stock is down 57% in the last year due to concerns about whether states and cities will build new infrastructure in the face of a crumbling economy. But does the Jacobs' stock drop mean it will go up now that Obama is President?

If its earnings estimates are credible, I would say Jacobs could be a good investment. That's because the stock trades at a Price/Earnings to Growth Ratio (PEG) of 0.55 and a stock whose PEG is below 1.0 looks undervalued to me. Jacobs' 0.5 PEG is based on a P/E ratio of 11.4 on earnings growth of 20.8% to EPS of $4.05 in the fiscal year ending September 2009.

And if Obama enacts his infrastructure plan in 2009, Jacobs' earnings prospects could brighten even more.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in Jacobs Engineering securities.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says this report highlighted where the success lies in this market: energy and petroleum.

Fluor's (NYSE: FLR) (Cramer's Take) a monster. It shows you that what has hurt the other companies, particularly Chicago Bridge & Iron (NYSE: CBI) (Cramer's Take), is pure execution.

This gigantic beat also serves to remind us of the big dichotomy. You are either in the energy and petroleum products game or you are in a lot of games that don't work.

It's not easy for these companies, some of which have lived off the duress of state and local governments, including Shaw (NYSE: SGR) (Cramer's Take) and to a certain extent Aecom (NYSE: ACM) (Cramer's Take) and URS (NYSE: URS) (Cramer's Take), to become oil-and-gas plays.

The only ones that have transcended it beside Fluor are Foster Wheeler (NASDAQ: FWLT) (Cramer's Take) and Jacobs Engineering (NYSE: JEC) (Cramer's Take), and the only reason you would really know that is longevity. I remember in the early 1980s when FLR and then FWC would compete directly for all of the huge projects after the second oil shock.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Allegiant Travel Co. (NASDAQ: ALGT) beat estimates with soaring Q1 revenues, bucking the airline trend.
• Apache Corp. (NYSE: APA) Q1 profits doubled but fell short of expectations.
• Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) posted solid Q1 results despite negative operational cash flow.
• Centex Corp. (NYSE: CTX) posted a Q4 loss well below analyst estimates.
• Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI) profits plunged in the first quarter on litigation charges.
• Countrywide Financial Corp. (NYSE: CFC) posted another big loss, way off estimates of a small profit.
• Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB) posted its first quarterly loss since 2003 on write-downs.
• Gardner Denver Inc. (NYSE: GDI) beat Q1 expectations and raised its outlook for the year.
• International Paper Co. (NYSE: IP) fell short of Wall Street's Q1 earnings estimates.
• Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE: JEC) beat Q1 estimates and offered fully-year guidance.
• KBR Inc. (NYSE: KBR) Q1 profit more than doubled on arbitration benefit.
• MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA) topped analysts' expectations as Q1 profits more than doubled.
• Office Depot Inc. (NYSE: ODP) Q1 profits tumbled 55% but still beat analysts' estimates.

This article is part of a 20 article special report on "Metals, miners and money".

A highlight at the recent New Orleans Investment Conference was a speech by Frank Holmes, CEO of US Global Investors, on "mega-trends" -- with a focus on global infrastructure needs, from the U.S. to China.

Here, we offer excerpts from his speech, as well as some specific stock ideas from Frank Holmes and US Global Investors' Chief Strategist, Jack Dzierwa.

"Megatrends are usually defined by sustainable and substantial growth in capital expenditures in any country or sector. They can be created by governmental policies for infrastructure or a massive technological breakthrough.

"We isolate megatrends through a series of proprietary models, including a top down analysis of such issues as global macroeconomic theme, regional and country trends, technological trends, government policies, and currency effects. As examples of megatrends:

• 1950s -- 1960s Megatrend: Massive growth of infrastructure in the U.S. and Europe leads to post-war prosperity, creating a wealth effect and consumer culture.
• 1990s -- Present Megatrend: Moore's Law and disruptive technologies lead to massive growth in information technology and data communications.
• 2000 and beyond Megatrend: Unprecedented change in global growth driven by globalization, urbanization, and wealth creation leads to a global infrastructure boom on a massive, intractable scale.