Rambling thoughts while wondering why just about everyone who owns a calculator is pumping the same stock, Dorel Industries . . .

The view from here is that there are too many unabashed cheerleaders hyping the stock market these days – and you know what that usually means.

Look out below, bulls.

If the bear comes out of hibernation this spring, it could be crankier than usual judging by the market’s inflated values.

More and more analysts and economists are admitting these days that world demand should keep oil and natural gas prices sky-high for the long term.

Which is what Ross Healy of Strategic Analysis has been telling us and Edge readers for years.

How about that swagger in the oilpatch? The price of oil seems to be spiking at about the same rate as the OEI (Oilpatch Ego Index).

Hey, anyone lonesome for dot-com fever? Check out the mania (irrational exuberance?) over Mamma.com (MAMA-Nasdaq).

But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet – wait until too-cool search engine Google stages its initial public offering (IPO) this month.

Shades of the good old dot-com bubble days.

The only trouble with blue-chip stocks is that almost none of them are blue-chip.

Please, please, no more books, no more lectures on how market traders are supposed to be unemotional.

If it’s true, then how come they’re all so emotional?

Naturally, it’s pure coincidence that CEOs are always travelling when you request an interview (funny how they always forget to take their cellphones with them).

The feds’ sale of their stake in Petro-Canada is getting too much ink but, hey, at least it has succeeded in overshadowing the stock’s woeful performance in a gushing energy sector.

If fabled Wall Street guru Richard Russell of the Dow Theory Investment Letter says gold is “dirt cheap” at $420 US per ounce, people ought to pay attention.

It seems that the pushy used-car salesman has been reincarnated as a computer salesman at the big retail store.

Considering the bullying sales tactics prevalent in the computer market, it’s not surprising that Dell founder Michael Dell is laughing all the way to the bank with his company’s direct-sales strategy and customer-service reps who are unarmed and less dangerous.

Kudos to Barbara Stymiest, CEO of the Toronto Stock Exchange, for taking the bull by the horns in pushing for a national regulator, but it’s curious that Canada’s most influential business leaders have been so quiet on this issue.

If Manitoba Telecom Services CEO Bill Fraser caves in to shareholder pressure over the acquisition of Allstream, it’s a dark, dark day for CEOs.

Rodney Dangerfield, call Bob Sartor: The CEO of Forzani Group gets no respect. Not only are Forzani shares down about 35 per cent since Sartor assumed the reins from John Forzani, but it was Forzani’s picture that was recently splashed on a section front of the National Post, where he was identified as company CEO.

Last time I checked, Royal Bank of Canada was a Canadian company – but once again we get scooped by an American, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is probing the bank with a subpoena over its policy of dealing with overpayments.

How the heck does Biovail CEO Eugene Melnyk keep his job?

Who says you can’t nap on Air Canada? Personally, I sleep better after reading those mind-numbing stories on this national embarrassment as it goes through bankruptcy protection.

And how the heck does Air Canada CEO Robert Milton keep his job?

For the record, the Edge’s Dirty Dozen Penny Stock Index, our tribute to the unloved penny stock, has returned 52 per cent in just over a year.

Damn, why’d we have to go and play it with Monopoly money?

Calgary money manager Gene Vollendorf of Savoy Capital is the latest to trumpet Dorel Industries (DII.B-TSX) as a top pick in the Pro’s 3 Stars (see this week's column), but he’s got plenty of company.

Indeed, pickin’s are slim.

SAGE WORDS: “Potential just means you ain’t done it yet.”

– Darrell Royal, football coach.



HOT STOCK: SpectrumGold Inc.
SGX-TSX $4.70
Up $1.35 (+40.3%) on 1,734,000 shares (for week ending April 2).
Merger mania, once the hot trend in the oilpatch, is starting to heat up in the mining sector. SpectrumGold shareholders hit a 40-per-cent jackpot when NovaGold acquired the Vancouver company in a deal that was overshadowed by Iamgold's mega-acquisition of Wheaton River Minerals.



COLD STOCK: Sentra Resources Corp.
SRA-TSX $1.38
Down 72 cents (-34.3%) on 557,400 shares (for week ending April 2).
It seems that not all oil and gas juniors are quaffing champagne in the penthouse suite these days. However, shareholders of Sentra were nursing hangovers after the Calgary company reported horrible financial results, including a loss of $11.2 million (48 cents per share) for the fourth quarter of '03.