Wall Street is now officially confused as to whether we're entering a recession or not. I've heard enough from the analysts, now let me hear from you! How are economic conditions in your area compared with one year ago?

Shares of Research In Motion (RIMM) touched a new all-time high today above $143 a share. Just three months ago, RIMM was forming a base at $84 a share.

From MarketWatch:

Before the opening bell, Research In Motion said it will launch the new BlackBerry Bold in markets across the globe later this summer. The device will be available in North America through an exclusive relationship with AT&T sometime later this year, according to an AT&T spokesman.

Shares of RIM set a new all-time high on the news, trading up more than 6% at $141.55 by midday. The stock had already surged by more than 60% over the last four months, having recovered fully from a sharp selloff in late 2007.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company announced the news on the same day as its annual meeting with Wall Street analysts. At the meeting, RIM affirmed its forecast for revenue between $2.23 billion and $2.3 billion for the quarter ending on May 31, according to one analyst who was present at the event.

"The combination of a strong new phone (due in summer) combined with continued backing of its financial outlook has the shares up today," Cowen & Co. analyst Matthew Hoffman wrote in a brief note to clients.

I first recommended RIMM in Blue Chip Growth in February 2007, and we already have a 242% gain.

In the most recent issue of Emerging Growth, I recommended selling Crocs (CROX) after its earnings came out on May 8. The company guided Wall Street higher and the stock jumped up yesterday, so this is a great opportunity to sell Crocs into strength. Despite the higher guidance, I still recommend selling Crocs due to rising volatility.

On March 17, the stock market tumbled on the news that Bear Stearns had collapse and was being taken over for just $2 a share by JPMorgan Chase. I couldn't believe some of the bargains I saw, and I urged my Emerging Growth subscribers to load up on fundamentally superior stocks. Here's how some of our top Emerging Growth stocks have performed since March 17:

Graham Corp. (GHM) +76.9%
General Steel (GSI) +75.0%
GrafTech International (GTI) +61.4%
Synaptics Inc. (SYNA) +54.7%
Cypress Semiconductor (CY) +49.4%

One of my favorite stocks in my Quantum Growth service is Marvel Entertainment (MVL), which is in the superhero business. Yesterday, the company reported first-quarter earnings of 58 cents per share which easily beat Wall Street's consensus of 43 cents per share. The stock gapped up nearly 10% in yesterday's trading. The company also raised its profit guidance for this year.

That wasn't the only good news for Marvel. The opening weekend for the new Iron Man movie was a smash. The movie brought in over $100 million, and over $200 million for its global haul. This was so big that one analyst said that Iron Man will contribute 55 cents per share to Marvel's bottom line. His earlier forecast was for just 15 cents per share.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that Iron Man 2 is scheduled to be released in 2010.

On Friday, the Labor Department announced that nonfarm payrolls fell by 20,000 in April, much less than economists' consensus estimates of 78,000 jobs lost, and significantly better than the average of 80,000 jobs lost each month in the first quarter. In addition, on Thursday, the Labor Department announced that weekly unemployment claims surged by 35,000 to 380,000, to the highest level in over five weeks. But in a statistical fluke, the unemployment rate fell to 5%, down from 5.1% in March, because more (362,000) unemployed workers got jobs in April than were laid off.

In other labor news, April wage inflation was in line with overall inflation, as average hourly rates increased by 3.4% in the last 12 months. However, that was offset by fewer hours worked and less overtime. The average work week fell to 33.7 hours and overtime in factories also fell. The bottom line is that, due to a weakening labor market, there is essentially no wage increase. As a result, further payroll losses are possible in May, so the May unemployment rate could rise.

One of the reasons more payroll losses are possible is due to the woes at Detroit's Big 3 auto makers. The U.S. manufacturing sector contracted for a third consecutive month in April as lower domestic demand put a damper on factory output, even as exports continued to rise. The Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) manufacturing index held steady at 48.6 in April, but that's still below a neutral reading of 50, which marks the inflection point between growth and contraction. Many manufacturers have been hit by rising energy costs and slowing U.S. demand, which have cut into order books. Some businesses have been able to offset these problems by selling more goods overseas as the weaker dollar makes U.S. goods seem more affordable to foreign buyers.

The Fed cut by 25 points bringing the Fed Funds rate down to 2%. Once again, there were two dissenting votes. Here's the statement:

The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower its target for the federal funds rate 25 basis points to 2 percent.

Recent information indicates that economic activity remains weak. Household and business spending has been subdued and labor markets have softened further. Financial markets remain under considerable stress, and tight credit conditions and the deepening housing contraction are likely to weigh on economic growth over the next few quarters.

Although readings on core inflation have improved somewhat, energy and other commodity prices have increased, and some indicators of inflation expectations have risen in recent months. The Committee expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters, reflecting a projected leveling-out of energy and other commodity prices and an easing of pressures on resource utilization. Still, uncertainty about the inflation outlook remains high. It will be necessary to continue to monitor inflation developments carefully.

The substantial easing of monetary policy to date, combined with ongoing measures to foster market liquidity, should help to promote moderate growth over time and to mitigate risks to economic activity. The Committee will continue to monitor economic and financial developments and will act as needed to promote sustainable economic growth and price stability.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; Timothy F. Geithner, Vice Chairman; Donald L. Kohn; Randall S. Kroszner; Frederic S. Mishkin; Sandra Pianalto; Gary H. Stern; and Kevin M. Warsh. Voting against were Richard W. Fisher and Charles I. Plosser, who preferred no change in the target for the federal funds rate at this meeting.

In a related action, the Board of Governors unanimously approved a 25-basis-point decrease in the discount rate to 2-1/4 percent. In taking this action, the Board approved the requests submitted by the Boards of Directors of the Federal Reserve Banks of New York, Cleveland, Atlanta, and San Francisco.

This is probably their last rate cut which is very good news for us. All investors should be fully invested now.

Flowserve's (FLS) latest earnings were simply stunning. The company flattened Wall Street's expectations. FLS' first-quarter earnings rose 159.3% to $1.53 per share compared with 59 cents per share last year. The Street was looking for 94 cents per share. Sales rose 23.6% to $993.3 million.

I was pleased to see Flowserve's gross margins increase to 34.8%. Even better, Flowserve raised its 2008 EPS guidance well above analysts' forecasts to between $5.90 and $6.20. The company's previous EPS guidance was between $5.10 and $5.40.

Due to widespread anticipation that the Fed will cut key interest rates for maybe the last time at its FOMC meeting this week, the U.S. dollar is trying to rally a bit. Wall Street is now expecting the Fed to cut the Fed Funds rate by 0.25%, from 2.25% to 2%, despite the fact that the 1-month and 3-month Treasury bills are yielding only 0.80% and 1.34%, respectively. Frankly, since this is the Fed's last chance to avoid an official recession (two negative quarters of GDP), I would throw caution to the wind, cut the Fed Funds rate 0.5% to 1.75%, boldly declare that this is likely the last rate cut and then tell businesses and consumers to start spending money! The U.S. dollar might firm up if they would just declare that they are likely finished cutting rates for this cycle.

Increasingly, there are now rumblings that the Fed may not cut rates at all, despite falling market rates, due to fears that the Fed does not want to weaken the U.S. dollar further. At the last FOMC meeting on March 18, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher and Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser argued that the Fed was moving too fast in cutting rates and voted against the subsequent 0.75% cut in the Fed Funds Rate. In fact, there have been dissenting votes at every FOMC meeting since they voted the first cut last September. Rich Yamarone, the director of economic research at Argus Research, said, "There is no reason why the Fed should be cutting rates now" and added, "the Fed is on dangerously thin ice." Yamarone also said that the Fed is "basically telling everyone 'we are abandoning any defense of the dollar.'"

As a result of these conflicting views, this week's FOMC meeting is filled with uncertainty. The Fed always has to walk a fine line, so we will carefully watch their statement after this week's FOMC meeting. Their statement may even have a bigger impact than their actual interest rate decision, which will most likely come with some dissenting votes, no matter what the Fed does.

Two months ago, I identified 10 Financial Stocks to Sell in my free weekly eletter, "What's Working on Wall Street Now." This week has been horrible for one of the stocks that I highlighted. On Monday, National City (NCC) posted a first-quarter loss of $171 million. The bank cut its dividend from 21 cents to just a penny a share. They also said that they raised $7 billion to secure their capital base. Since I said to dump the shares, National City is down 62%.