Volatile price swings seem to be the name of the game in the small-cap world these days – and after hitting record-breaking volatility back in December, many investors have been left wondering when things are going to calm down. But unlike blue-chip stocks, where high price volatility is an unwelcome trend, that same price flux can equal serious profits for small-cap stocks.

Keep this volatility tip in mind and you’ll be well on your way to profiting from the price swings…

It can be nerve-racking to watch a stock pinball. And if you own shares of any penny stock, you have to be able to spot whether or not the stock is taking a turn for the worse. But wild price swings don’t always mean that there’s cause for concern in your small-cap portfolio.

OTC Is Inherently Volatile

Volatility is inherent in any small-cap stock, but that’s especially true of stocks that

In the next 30 days, we’re going to see the stock market drop by 10%. And if you buy shares of the play I’m about to reveal, you could be in for as much as 20% profits as a result…

While that may sound like a very specific prediction for a market that’s been anything but predictable this year, thanks to our newest investing tool we’ve got a little bit of added insight into where the market’s headed in the short term.

A few weeks back, I wrote to you about the Small-Cap Recovery Index that Penny Stock Fortunes editors Greg Guenthner, Jim Nelson and I have been working on here at Agora Financial HQ.  The index was designed to use the predictive power of small-cap stocks and leading economic indicators to give us some clues as to when we might get our first glimpse at economic recovery.

That’s because historically, small-caps lead

Bond bubble remerges… details behind the gov’s latest debt struggle… The slow demise of snail mail… USPS forecasts record losses… Customized drugs: Patrick Cox on a breakthrough set to revolutionize health care… Bill Jenkins with another sign the euro is overvalued… his price targets below…

Just when you thought the bond bubble was being saved for another day…

The government managed to auction $39 billion worth of 5-year debt yesterday… barely. Wednesday’s debt sale drew a bid-to-cover ratio of 1.92, the lowest investor demand since September 2008. Low demand forced Uncle Sam to jack up interest rates at the last minute in two separate bond auctions this week — yesterday’s sale and Tuesday’s $42 billion auction of 2-year notes.

So what’s an indebted government to do? Manipulate the market, of course. Bond yields have given back yesterday’s spike partly thanks to the Federal Reserve, which bought $3

There’s a debate brewing on Wall Street right now – it’s a fight over which way the market’s headed after it makes its way out of its current rut.

Tuesday morning on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, anchors Mark Haines and Erin Burnett featured commentary from Phil Roth, Chief Technical Analyst at Miller Tabak. Roth explained that investors shouldn’t be fooled by the recent rally we’ve seen since the market hit its March 9 low of 666.79 – until stocks test their current levels, we could be seeing a bear market rally that could easily give back some of those gains.

CNBC’s Mark Haines was outraged. “The market’s moved more than 20% higher off the lows… 20% or more is a bull market. The benefit of the doubt has to go to the bull market,” exclaimed a frustrated Haines after Roth discounted the anchor’s opinion.

Who’s right?

Forget about what’s happening on TV –

Water is essential for life. It’s quite literally an investment that you can’t live without. And while you might not be able to trade water futures on the Chicago Board of Trade, providing people with H2O is a $400 billion global industry, according to an article by Harvard’s Garry Emmons.

“In an age of global water scarcity, with governments scrambling to create new water systems or repair deteriorating ones, there is money in water,” he says. And Emmons isn’t the only expert who thinks water is soon to be a very valuable commodity. “Water is going to be more important than oil in the next 20 years,” predicted Dipak Jain, dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, to Bloomberg.

That’s thanks in large part to your local water utility. While cities and municipalities run 85% of water utilities, there are scores of for-profit companies left over to turn water

For investors who had money in the markets last year, October 2008 is a month that will not soon be forgotten. In those 31 days, the S&P 500 – a major indicator of the stock market at large – fell almost 17%, reversing the gains of the previous five years.

But as the markets work their way back into health and investor confidence continues to creep up month after month, we risk throwing away the lessons of the Subprime Crash of 2008:

Lots of very intelligent investors got embroiled in huge losses last year. Bernie Madoff fleeced scores of wealthy, well-informed investors – many of whom lost everything they had built up over a lifetime. The collapse of some of the biggest financial institutions, including Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, thinned out the Wall Street crowd by the millions. And underperforming fund managers hit close to home

“[During a recession] small stocks outperformed T-Bills, bonds, and the S&P about two-thirds of the time — and they did so by a ridiculous margin,” claims the Motley Fool’s Ilan Moscovitz.

While safe, stable stocks are usually the first place investors flock to when markets turn sour, maybe you should be taking another look at penny stocks. As “blue chips” like GM and AIG crumbled under the strain of the credit crunch, a large number of penny stocks were making a small group of investors a fortune.

If the true test of an investment is a bad economy, what better time was there to demonstrate that theory than the last 12 months? Over the course of the last year, we’ve seen the market falter, absorb bad news, and crash harder than it’s fallen in three generations. And while stocks took a big hit across the board, here’s a look at the

On May 15, 2009, the Internet changed forever. Did you miss it?

The widespread acceptance of the Internet has lead to a monumental shift in the way we do almost everything. Communication now happens instantly across thousands of miles, e-commerce has generated billions of dollars for companies like Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), and, with the advent of search technologies like Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), the planet’s information is at our fingertips.

But in spite of these advances, something was missing…

After all, why should you have to scour pages and pages of Google results to find out which country is the world’s 5th smallest exporter? How is it that that sort of factual information isn’t readily available? In the past, search technologies had a big limitation – they required you to ask a question that’s already been asked and answered. But on May 15, with the public release of Wolfram Alpha,

Could a new IPO mean that the market’s really on the way to a rebound?

This week, Solarwinds (NYSE: SWI) became the first venture capital-backed initial public offering (IPO) in more than nine months. That’s a significant event for those who watch the IPO market… it’s also significant for the rest of us – after all, IPOs can be a pretty good indicator of how the stock market is turning.

And in 2009, things haven’t been turning very fast…

In the first quarter of 2009, there were only two new IPO deals done globally; that’s compared to the 100 deals done in the first quarter of 2007. It wasn’t for a lack of eligible companies either: all told, 26 firms withdrew or postponed their initial public offerings this year. That’s no surprise given the global economic slowdown that started last year.

When companies are considering going public, how the market’s faring can

Jonas Elmerraji says battered companies are paying more attention to their most valuable asset: people. Investment in corporate training is growing, meaning big business for firms like GP Strategies (NYSE:GPX). The company specialises in teaching professionals and improving company performance. And with a strong management and solid balance sheet, Jonas says this stock looks a great buy for 2009.

This from Penny Sleuth:

“Growth” isn’t a word we can expect to hear in most industries for a long time — most, but not all…

One industry that’s seen its numbers increase this past year is one you might not expect: corporate training.

That’s right: In the wake of our current financial turmoil, many companies are making the decision to invest in an asset that’s not always noticed by investors… their people.

According to Josh Bersin, president of Bersin & Associates, a research firm that tracks enterprise learning and talent management, “Corporations are investing heavily