Jim Oberweis, editor of the Oberweis Report, says small growth stocks should easily beat the market, and he finds two he thinks should outpace tepid economic growth.

On a serious note, Eddie Bauer (Nasdaq:EBHI) has filed for Chapter 11 on Wednesday. The company is known for outdoor-like clothin. It is said that CCMP Capital Advisors LLC has bid $202 million in cash for its assets. Other buyers may also make bids while the company is under court protection.Bankruptcy rumors had been swirling as Bellevue, Wash.-based Eddie Bauer struggled with slumping sales amid the recession.This is probably still the beginning of the end for many speciality retailers and "non-necessity" purveyors. Consumer prices meanwhile rose less than expected in May and posted the steepest annual drop in 59 years, according to government data also released Wednesday, fresh evidence that the recession is keeping inflation in check. The bad news here is that deflationary-forces are still prevalent, and if prices are not rising that's a sure sign that demand is waning.[More...]

Today there were a couple of posts about how tech stocks are currently especially attractive because they hold plenty of cash and tend to have little debt. Paul Kedrosky initially caught my eye with his post "Tech Cash is King" which in turn pointed me to a story on Bloomberg by Eric Martin. I ran a screen tonight that looked at both cash and debt. Specifically, I screened for a Price-to-Cash ratio under three, a Debt-to-Equity ratio under three and a Market Cap greater than $2.5 million. Based on these criteria, I obtained a list of 136 stocks. Judging from our list, it is absolutely true that many tech stocks do seem to have lots of cash and little debt. What also became apparent as I went through the list is that there[More...]