So now, when you thought that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) was king of the hill, think twice. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) both racked up perfect trading quarters, according to the Wall Street Journal.

JPMorgan had 12 days where it made more than $200 million each day. Bank of America had at least 25 days where it made more the $100 million from trading in the third quarter.

Well, well, well, it seems that the market has taken yet another bearish turn ... some are even touting that we are in the midst of a double-dip recession. While others will argue that we are not in a double-dip recession, one thing is certain in this market -- uncertainty.

Don't let the recent dips and dives in the market scare you away (President Obama isn't). There are ways to make money in unstable markets. Let's take a look at a way to make money in this market.

It may be months -- if not years -- before investors, experienced and otherwise, definitively learn what caused last week's market plunge -- a nearly 1,000-point dive intra-day that, even in the financial crisis era's volatile trading, amazed even veteran trading floor specialists.

And that latter actor, or lack thereof, may prove to be the pivotal clue. While one doesn't want to indict technology before the evidence has been assembled and reviewed, the initial analysis suggests that some form of computer-to-computer, negative-spiral trading at least contributed to last Thursday's plunge in the Dow.

Goldman Sachs (GS) has topped its previous record of $100 million dollar trading days. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the bank made at least $100 million in net trading revenue on 131 days last year. Its previous record, set in 2008, was for 90 days of $100 million plus revenue.

Last year, during 263 trading days, Goldman lost money on only 19 days. Otherwise, it hit the jackpot pretty much every other day.

As we move gradually closer to a stable economy where retail investors are again ready to enter the markets, we see a lot written about which stocks, sectors, and investment types are smart bets for future growth.

Money Magazine recently ran a piece in their Investor's Guide 2010 series entitled "10 Stocks That Can Keep Running," which offers three areas in which the markets are likely to be solid in the coming years. This author's opinion is they were mostly right. But there needs to be a little more explanation for the average retail investor.

Why are corn futures down so much? It seems that two factors converged to drive the price down by 49 cents to $3.76 per bushel this week: The first is supply and the second is reduced shipment.

On the supply side, the Department of Agriculture issued its report of crop production on January 12. The nation's harvest was estimated to be 13.151 billion bushels, up 8.8% from a year ago. And that's not all, global supplies will add to the pricing pressure as global supplies of corn, wheat, rice and soybeans are expected to be up 8.3%, to the highest level since 2002.

Prices could drop even further after the Brazil and Argentina harvests, due to start next month.

Following today's market close, technology giant Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) had its chance to impress Wall Street with its fiscal first quarter results, and the company did not disappoint.

Going into this afternoon's earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see the company show earnings of 31 cents per share, but the company surprised to the upside by posting actual earnings of 36 cents per share for its fiscal first quarter. For the same period last year the company had earnings of 42 cents per share.

As I write this, shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) are down well over 3% to $24.83. That's a drop of 89 cents per share. The catalyst? A downgrade from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS).

According to Bloomberg, the institution removed the software giant from its conviction buy list. There's concern that the first quarter won't be overwhelmingly positive. Understandably, Wall Street got a little nervous and decided to book some profits. Microsoft has had a decent run as of late.

If you are one of the investors out there watching General Motors stock each day trying to pick the perfect time to buy the stock... don't! For whatever reason, people have continued to buy General Motors stock, despite the fact that the company and the government have issued warnings that the stock is destined to be worthless.

I read an interesting article that reported yesterday there were 12.6 million shares of General Motors traded. Maybe people do not realize that the company went into bankruptcy, or maybe they are just trying to profit off of traders that are not aware that this is not new General Motors stock, but the volumes are a bit curious.

Are you looking for Nirvana when you invest? Forget about it. It doesn't exist.

Let's start with two big losers that relied on financial data and ended up on the trash heap. First we have Long Term Capital. Founded by John Meriwether, Robert C. Merton, and Myron Scholes. They formed the largest hedge fund in the U.S. in the 1990s with an estimated 4.6 billion in capital. Merton and Scholes had won the Nobel Prize in economics for developing a pricing model for options called the "Black Scholes Model." Since both men had won the Nobel Prize, this should have been Nirvana. Now comes along the Russian financial crisis and Long Term Capital was on the wrong side of history. They took such a beating that the Federal Reserve had to help bail them out for a time until they went bust in 2000.

Goldman Sachs & Co. Inc. (NYSE GS) is a powerhouse when it comes to making money from trading. Goldman is now a bank and receives all the benefits that come with its new banking status.

As for Goldman's trading profits, the firm had 46 separate days in the second quarter in which trading revenues were $100,000, setting a new record. This compares with 34 $100 million days in the first quarter.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says it's a farce when a $10 million investment from one rogue trader can move oil up relatively easily.

Here are things that the commodities traders' lobby always stops: margin increases and any sort of regulation against manipulation. They always claim that the markets are too "deep" and they always have stats that back it up. We saw this in the commoditization of stock sectors that are now dominated and manipulated by power ultra futures.

The "deepness" of any sector is, of course, an illusion if you actually trade, but if you don't trade you are tempted to attribute anything to the rise and fall of a sector except manipulation, because manipulation means common-sense margin regulation, which cuts down on fees and therefore ruins the business. No one ever allows a cut in fees -- too much money at stake, too many politicians that can be easily bought, too many agency regulators that can easily be captured.

Manipulation's just part of the game -- a sanctioned part.

Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), a software publisher which competes with Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) and distributes games for consoles from Sony (NYSE: SNE), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Nintendo (OTC: NTDOY), is a stock I own in a long-term account. I've been thinking about selling at times, but for now, I'm holding on. The long-term prospects still look good for the most part.

But, I had been looking at various trading ideas and wanted to capture a shorter-term gain for a trading account. The market has been so tough this year. When the recent rally in the indexes started, I didn't want to become part of the group that was desperate to get in on the action, only to expose my portfolio to more risk than necessary. Believe me, when you're afraid of missing a rally, you just might end up with some bad timing.

Options and trading specialist Bernie Schaeffer selects stocks based on a combination of fundamental, technical and sentiment-based metrics.

His research leads to long trading positions for his Schaeffer's Master Portfolio and short trading plays for his Schaeffer's Short Selling services.

Here's a long at four of his latest trading ideas -- long positions in Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and VMware (NYSE: VMW) as well as short position in Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).

This post was written by Minyanville contributor Smita Sadana.

A trade doesn't simply have an initiation and finale – the most important part of a trade is its evolution and constant re-assessment if the original thesis that the trade was initiated with, still holds true.

On that note, let's look at First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR). I started a short position in it on 6/1 when instead of participating in the market advance, it lagged (due to a LA Times story that FSLR's acquisition of "strategic land rights" is under scrutiny). Recall, it came on the heels of a cautious mention in Barron's on May 26th. So, both times, FSLR reacted negatively to negative news and volume picked up on both those instances.

Today, Pacific Crest Securities reiterated its buy rating on FSLR and called the recent weakness a "buying opportunity."

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