The three months ended June 2008 have not been the best for any stock exchange. The S&P 500 has lost a hefty 8 percent during this brief interlude. The services sector has declined by a similar amount as well. However, one of its members has bucked the trend. The schools industry has registered a sharp rise in the last 100 days. Is this the beginning of a new trend? This would be welcome news for investors wary of market volatility.

Education is good business. It matches health care in social significance. Education is also a great leveler. It is the best hope for children from economically depressed communities. State-sponsored educational facilities do not meet all demands. This has spawned a robust industry for teaching in a business format.

There are some 26 listings from the schools industry in various stock exchanges. Small-capital stock options dominate the scene. This suggests that the industry

Employees are not the only ones seriously affected by outsourcing. Large banks have outsourced customer accounts to third parties. There has been at least one instance of call-center employees making fraudulent transactions. Examples of poor service abound. Investments in branding are wasted, apart from the crippling loss of customer goodwill.

This kind of outsourcing may be to a foreign national who was previously employed by the bank. That is why employees move swiftly to brush outsourcing dirt under the carpet. Presidential candidates speak of national employment effects of sending jobs abroad, but the effects on stocks have been hidden from the views of most investors.

The chemical lead in toys, and quality issues with life-saving medicines, are extreme examples of serious business lapses due to outsourcing. It is up to stock investors to ask relevant questions of executives and directors at quarterly conferences. Window-dressing of quarterly results through

Travel-related enterprises have been quick off-the-blocks. You may not distinguish Complex Event Processing (CEP) from older versions of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA); however, you are probably a beneficiary every time you buy a ticket or reserve accommodations. Complex Event Processing could leave your own business behind the competition. It is certainly a significant driver of future enterprise development. Customer service now beats tangible product features in many categories.

Information Technology experts like to distinguish Complex Event Processing from Service Oriented Architecture. This is to akin to splitting hairs for the general manager or a stock investor. What use is any hardware if it does not help to retain customer loyalty? Could cheap call centers abroad steal your stocks of potential revenues? Can corporations leverage information technology more fully for competitive advantages?

All business transactions may be seen as complex events. This is usually one of the first conclusions of a Services Management

The benefits are obvious, but some risks are not widely appreciated. The Utilities Sector shows a disturbing trend for the 12 months ended May 2008. The Gas Utilities Industry has fared a little better than its peers during this period. The crude oil outlook is unclear. That is why opinion is divided on how gas prices may fare in future.

This small-capital stock from Fort Worth, TX has a clear location advantage. The home base is front and center of one of the most exciting natural gas fields in all of North America. The management has been sanguine in leveraging a spatial advantage fully. It has been pro-active in securing gathering and processing rights to top natural gas resources in its neighborhood.

Stock investors wary of how the markets have behaved during June 2008 will be relieved to know that this stock

Intelligence has many forms. Traditional systems of education emphasize logical thinking to a fault. Concrete intelligence is incomplete without feelings. Psychologists have always known the values of abstract thinking, but the world of business management has accepted emotional intelligence as a relevant skill only of late. Big business corporations have quickly taken to industrial psychology concepts. Small stock investors, as usual, are largely left to fend for themselves.

It is possible to cultivate relevant mental faculties for stock market operations. It is a large field with many dimensions. The human brain can put any silicon chip to shame. Just as we can exercise to train individual muscle groups, so discrete parts of the mind can be honed for top functioning. We are all born with certain predispositions in this respect. It is possible to leverage inherited strengths. We can also work on some of our brain cells that seem to be

The six months before June 2008 have shown business diversification in very favorable light for stocks. Innumerable portfolios have come to grief because of their over-dependencies on one or the other segment of the world economy. Almost all stock investors, whether by hindsight or foresight, must look at stocks of diversified companies to weather the current market conditions until the next upswing.

Capital, human, physical and intangible resources limit diversification. A management team may wish to enter a new field of activity, but lack the capabilities to compete profitably and in sustainable ways. A wide client base gives a corporation most of the benefits of diversification, without requiring such diverse resources.

This is the case of a small-capital member of the Electronic Instrumentation & Controls Industry from Quincy, MA. Horticulture, foods, mining, aerospace, and logistics are examples of the breadth of industries which this company serves. It makes power transmission and motion

Any time is appropriate for questioning value deliveries to customers. Corporations run by former sales people are especially vulnerable to exaggerated claims of customer loyalty. Some stock investors buy quarterly management stories about why market shares have grown faster than profits. However, stock exchange veterans prefer to see selling price increases as marks of customer preferences, above all else.

It is true that some marketing investments require more than a year to realize full returns. However, these costs invariably appear below the Gross Margin line. Hence, trends in this ratio speak volumes about the basic health of any stock. Inflation generally affects an entire industry, if not the whole sector uniformly, therefore benchmarking a stock against Gross Margins earned by direct competitors gives an X-Ray view of the state of a business.

Competition and Gross Margins are inversely related. No professional would introduce a new brand with additional customer benefits, at a

Insurance is a durable business. No professional enterprise can do without it, in good times and bad. Insurance is also a vital form of security for stock investors. There are abundant and compelling reasons to favor stocks in the insurance business when markets are depressed, under cost pressures, or with uncertain demand trends.

Insurance spawns other enterprises, just like most industries. The entities from which retail customers buy insurance are reluctant to take full risks on their own shoulders. There are other financial benefits in reinsurance as well. However, the reinsurance industry is subject to the kinds of derivative risks from which the stock exchange world has suffered since September 2007.

The insurance business also requires the management of claims. This service, unlike reinsurance, costs little to run, is isolated from risk, and adds significant values. The business model of this small capital member of the Insurance (Miscellaneous) Industry from Atlanta, GA,

The largest and historically most consistent corporations can commit blunders. That is why no small capital entity should develop excessive dependence on any of its larger peers. This seems to be the primary lesson learnt by a small capital member of the Electronic Instrumentation & Controls Industry from Anaheim, CA.

The company is a pioneer of flexible circuits. Such electronic wizardry contributes enormous values to consumer electronic devices such as mobile handsets. The company focused on meeting the needs of a corporate giant, which in turn had an uncharacteristic setback with one of its model launches. This dampened cash flows from flexible circuits, driving them well below potentials and forecasts.

Fortunately, the company has been nimble and quickly developed a slew of new clients. Revenues have grown by 45% during the Most Recent Quarter, beating estimates by professional analysts. The stock price, as might be expected in the circumstances, has climbed 12%