Today on Stockhouse

Your opinion matters. Submit an article to Stockhouse today at submissions@stockhouse.com. Submission guidelines can be found here.

Investment opportunities in the energy sector: Part I, from The Energy Report.

Matt McAbby says history shows stock markets may have bottomed.

Gold price thrusts through resistance in today’s Got Gold Report by Gene Arensberg.

Option market does not think General Electric div will hold, notes Jud Pyle.

Investing has come a long way since 1994, explains Sy Harding.

Buzz on the Boards took a look at the Allen-Vanguard (TSX: T.VRS, Stock Forum) Bullboard and the PDX Resources (TSX: T.PLG, Stock Forum) Bullboard.

Top Bullboards post: “Majors are having no problems at all getting financing these days. Kinross, Semafo, etc. Just last Friday, Red Back Mining $150 million, ka-ching. The money is there again folks, and that will simmer down to the juniors eventually. The share price keeps crawling its way up slowly, but we are not even close to being near fair valuation. My strategy now is to try and buy on any dip, especially if gold (and copper) continues to trend higher. While people have been sitting on the side lines waiting for financing they have been missing out on a good 100%. And the longer they wait the more desperate they will get, which together with greed will set KNB off again[sic].” – From metalslug on the Kinbauri Gold Corp. (TSX: V.KNB, Stock Forum) Bullboard.

Top Bullboard: Mooncor Oil and Gas Corp. (TSX: V.MOO, Stock Forum) was one of the most posted Bullboards of the day.

Top blog: GambitX discussed “A February 10 Bagger” on the Gambit’s Gambles blog Monday.

For news about small stocks that made big moves in Monday trading, please read the Stockhouse Canadian Small and Micro-cap Stock Report.

Word on Wall Street

"It's almost like a teeter-totter right now," Alan Lancz, money manager at Alan B. Lancz & Associates told the Associated Press. "Earnings season is always treacherous in this kind of global economic environment with all the uncertainty."

Today In The Markets

Stocks register gains as Barclays earns boost banks, Caterpillar earns disappoint

TORONTO, NEW YORK (CP) - Stock markets eked out a minor advance Monday as British bank Barclays delivered some rare good news from the financial sector that was tempered by news of tens of thousands of new layoffs and disappointing earnings from Caterpillar Inc.

Toronto's S&P/TSX composite index, up almost 200 points during the morning, edged 28.54 points higher to 8,656.51. The Canadian dollar was up 0.47 cent to 81.69 cents US. The TSX Venture Exchange moved ahead 7.47 points to 867.16.

In the United States, New York's Dow Jones industrial average also came down from a strong triple digit rise to close up 38.47 points to 8,116.03, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 12.17 points to 1,489.46. The S&P 500 index was up 4.62 points to 836.57 after the Conference Board's monthly forecast of economic activity increased 0.3 per cent in December, much better than the 0.3 per cent decline that economists had expected.

Please click here for current U.S. and Canadian market summaries.

After-Hours News

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) After Monday's close, the chip maker reported fourth-quarter net income of $107 million, or eight cents a share, compared with $756 million, or 54 cents a share, during the same period last year. Revenue fell to $2.49 billion from $3.56 billion. Results included restructuring charges of 13 cents a share. Analysts expected earnings of 12 cents a share on revenue of $2.37 billion. Texas Instruments also announced a plan to cut 3,400 jobs, or 12% of its workforce.

Silver Wheaton (TSX: T.SLW) The company, after Monday's closing bell, said it has entered into an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters led by Genuity Capital Markets and GMP Securities L.P. pursuant to which they have agreed to purchase, on a bought deal basis, 31,250,000 common shares of Silver Wheaton at a price of CDN$8.00 per share, for aggregate gross proceeds to Silver Wheaton of approximately $250 million.