Boeing (BA) reported a big number last week, supporting my view that the current sales cycle is going to be long and strong. Everything was supersonic at the company, with margins, sales, earnings and cash flow all higher, and the company also lifted guidance. The second-quarter earnings per share of $1.35 blew away the $1.14 consensus estimate, which means this huge company saw earnings up a whopping 39% over the same quarter last year. Revenue was up 14% as well, which means the higher earnings was not just a financial trick. I feel comfortable with forecasting as much as $6.06 in earnings for 2008, which is above expectations. The only quibble that you heard from some analysts was a $500 million lift in research and development forecasts to $3.3 billion. In the past, more money for R&D has meant that the company was having trouble with a new program and needed to apply more engineers to the problem. Skeptics said that they believe it meant Boeing would not make its deadline for its first flight of the new 787 Dreamliner, but I think that is not a likely scenario. In fact, the company has so much good will from investors at this point that even if the schedule slipped a month, I don't think you'll hear a lot of complaints.

In light of News Corp.'s (NWS) release of earnings tomorrow, I want to take a moment to discuss the recent news around NWS and their bid for the Dow Jones (DJ). After months of tense negotiations with the Bancroft family, the controllers of Dow Jones, and in turn The Wall Street Journal, appear to have finally acquiesced to Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion cash offer for their company. This decision came after the publisher of the Journal wrote a letter to subscribers telling them that a majority of the Bancrofts now support the deal that will give control of Dow Jones to News Corp. This deal will end the Bancrofts' more than one hundred years of independent ownership of Dow Jones.

This is a monumental moment for Rupert Murdoch, for whom The Wall Street Journal has been an object of admiration and downright lust in his quest to expand his media empire into the business and financial space. Ever the shrewd businessman, I am confident that Murdoch will maintain the editorial independence of Dow Jones -- this being of pivotal importance to the maintenance of the company's hallowed brands. Time will tell if I am right.

Under Murdoch's strategic care, the future of the Dow Jones stable looks bright. He will surely expand efforts to move the papers into the digital realm, invest to expand media coverage, and take other newspaper behemoths like The New York Times head on. And, of course, the brand will be featured prominently on his new Fox Business Channel, which will be launched later this year.

Whenever the market takes a beating, it's always interesting to first see which sectors have been hit the most, and second to see which have the greatest capacity for recovery. In April 2000, we saw a stunning switch in the market from large-cap growth stocks to small- and mid-cap value stocks, though there were many out-of-favor large-caps that also suddenly found buyers.

A great example of the latter was Anheuser-Busch (BUD). The moment that the NASDAQ 100 (NDX) began to fall apart in April 2000, BUD recovered from an 18-month slide, and it went on to double over the next 18 months. I will be looking for those kinds of turnarounds over the next couple of months, if in fact the market does begin to seriously deteriorate. The problem for this approach, at the moment, is that there are very few truly out-of-favor groups that appear to have the potential to pull a switch on the broad market. Commodities, foreign stocks, small-caps and basic materials have all done well in the past several years. The only really serious laggards are financials and real estate, and since they are at the epicenter of the credit crisis, it doesn't seem as if they will revive in a soft market.

So, I ran a screen for stocks that are down or flat over the past year but up in the past month and week. Some of the companies that look promising are Electronic Arts (ERTS), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Applied Biosystems (ABI). Ones that could surprise us are banks Zion Bancorp (ZION) and Bank of America (BAC), banking processor Global Payments (GPN) and chipmaker Trident Microsystems (TRID). I'll keep an eye on these along with tobacco makers Philip Morris (MO) and two of my perennial favorites, Expeditors International (EXPD) and Gilead Sciences (GILD).

As many of my readers can attest to, I'm a huge sports fan. And as a Seattle resident, I'm sure you can guess what my favorite professional teams are -- the Seahawks and the Mariners. But my interest is not limited to baseball and football as I actually play tennis and participate in triathalons. And of course, with both my kids participating in school-sponsored athletics, I can be found cheering on the sidelines at volleyball matches and baseball games.

So, whenever there's a sport snagging a lot of headlines, you can bet that it caught my eye, too. Recently, there's been a lot of discussion on betting scandals in the athletic arena. One blog that I read on a regular basis -- The Numbers Guy -- had a good entry on the suspicious betting surrounding tennis star Nikolay Davydenko. Check it out here.

If you're a subscriber to my Strategic Advantage newsletter, or have read any of my articles for MSN recently, then you know that I have a pretty bleak outlook on the housing market right now. All year, I've been recommending that my subscribers avoid companies in the housing and homebuilders sector. While I was at the San Francisco Money Show in July, I reiterated this view in an interview with Gary Alexander. You can check out the interview here.

Another interview from the San Francisco Money Show. Back in July when oil was still trading near all-time highs, I was interviewed by Gary Alexander about whether there are any plays in the energy fields -- crude oil or natural gas. In the interview, I discussed how oil stocks look expensive but are actually cheap and pointed out that the best investments in this field are actually oilfield services companies -- companies that help to get oil and gas out of the ground. Check out the interview here.

In a sector where environmental restrictions are getting tighter and tighter, it's nice to see an energy company get some recognition for its efforts to protect the environment. Williams Companies (WMB) received for awards last week for its commitment to environmental protection during the company's development and production of natural gas reserves. The recognition included an award for "Best Management Practice," for Williams' ability to drill 22 wells in a single location, as well as three "Outstanding Operations Awards" that honored the company for its survey to study water quality, construction of a new road and tunnel to cut down on driving and central hydraulic fracturing process that eliminated water trucking from one of its fields. It's great to see this company not only exceed in the natural gas sector, but to see it be recognized for the steps it takes to maintain the environment where its drilling stations are set up.