This makes for a tough time for investors. It's even harder when investors don't look at fundamentals and only stock action on a day to day basis. Now is the time for patience and to be smart. I'm confident on 90% of our open positions. I would like to put cash to work on weakness. In other words I want to be an investor in the classic sense of the word and not react or assume to make money with each gyration of the broad market. Yes, there are unknowns but the market is really victimized by the fact individual investors have fled or are easy to shake out, leaving the action up to the big boys and their machines.

The economic data out today was upbeat and positive, and in a different era would have the market humming a positive tune. Instead we are whistling past the graveyard that is Greece. Hang in there; we are going to do well.

Markets Hang on Despite Greek Turmoil
By Carlos Guillen

Equity markets are hanging on, trying to stay in winning territory, but finding it very difficult to do so as the Greek turmoil continues to find its way to the center of attention. Given the domino effect that a Greek banking failure would have on the euro zone and, in turn, here at home, it is actually surprising that equity markets are not tanking lower; not yet at least. Apparently, today investors found a bit of solace in rather positive housing data and better than expected industrial production figures.

In Europe, the Greek political situation is simply a big mess. After failing to form a coalition government yesterday, Greek leaders have decided form a temporary government that will remain in power until new elections are held on June 17. This instability is accelerating the probability of Greece leaving the euro zone and is shaking financial markets around the world. Although Greek official continue to negate the likelihood of a euro exit, others in Europe beg to differ, including Greek civilians themselves as demonstrated by their action to withdraw savings yesterday. Greeks withdrew euros from banks amounting to approximately $900 million, apparently afraid of the repercussions of rapid devaluation if the country were to return to its original currency, the drachma. While this action is still not considered a bank run, it still reflects the current fears of Greek civilians.

Here at home, housing data showed some positive results, but certainly going nowhere fast. Housing starts increased 2.6 percent to a 717,000 annual rate, above the Street's consensus of 690,000, but building permits decreased to 715,000, below the Street's consensus of 730,000: more on this below.

Also a bit encouraging was that Industrial production increased in April by 1.1 percent, landing above the Street's estimate of 0.5 percent, as auto manufacturing and Utility output ramped higher. Utility output climbed the most in two years and motor vehicles sales in the first quarter were the strongest in four years, both coming together to more than offset the slowdown in corporate equipment purchases. The data showed that motor vehicle production jumped 3.9 percent and Utility production climbed 4.5 in April after increasing 1.2 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively, in the prior month. Also positive was that capacity utilization increased to 79.2 percent, the highest since April 2008, up from 78.4 percent in March, and higher than the Street's estimate of 79.0 percent.

In all, while today's data points leaned more to the positive side, the Greek situation will add lots of volatility to equity markets. As it stands, stock gains from earlier on today are fading, and if today is anything like yesterday, markets may end in the red again.

Home Starts Tick Up
By David Urani

More from the housing market, as construction starts were up 2.6% in April from March; that included a 2.3% increase in single family units. 717k units were started, which was above the 690k consensus estimate. Single family permits were also up 1.9%. Construction activity still appears to be recovering from the dip we saw earlier in the year, but the good news is that like a couple other housing data points that we've seen, action appears to be back on the rise again in the residential market, if only modestly last month.

Interestingly, even though starts slid a bit in the prior two months, completions of homes were up 10% to 651k. That is the highest amount of completions since June 2010. That's an encouraging sign that home builders are preparing the market for more sales. We've noted among public homebuilders' quarterly reports that the ones who are currently expanding their inventories are enjoying better sales growth and driving profits.

In the meantime, the delinquency rate of mortgages continues to slide, according to MBA. 7.40% of outstanding mortgages were behind on payments in the first quarter, down from 7.58% in the fourth quarter. Fewer and fewer homeowners are going late on payments, as the number of borrowers who have missed just one payment is at the lowest level since mid-2007. That being said, the foreclosure process remains stubbornly slow. The foreclosure rate stood at 7.39%, a slight uptick from 7.38%. Foreclosures continue to be bottlenecked by legal matters, particularly in judicial states which are seeing foreclosure rates at record highs. However, these are largely the old foreclosure cases that still haven't been resolved; the fact remains that newly started foreclosures are at the lowest point since late 2007. So for the long term, the outlook for the mortgage market continues to look increasingly favorable.

Apple Who?

In the middle of April, the market started to hear some bearish sentiment about Apple (AAPL), and really for the first time in years the stock began to come under scrutiny. All seemed to be forgiven after its stellar earnings report but once again, the stock has only been trending back down since then. Now, we find ourselves with AAPL stock down modestly again today, and it's fallen back to where it was before that great Q1 report.

I thought today's 1Q mobile phone sales report from Gartner was somewhat telling as why Apple is not the end-all-be-all of the tech space. Of course, the company drives profits and cash flow like no other, but the fact is it is being outperformed the mobile market. In terms of smartphones, the iPhone accounts for 22.9% of the market, and that's nicely up from 16.9% last year. However, the market share gain in Google's (GOOG) Android is much more impressive, rising to 56.1% from 36.4%. As it turns out, Google could start to grow even faster from here, as it is changing up the way it delivers its operating system to phone makers in order to get it to the market faster.

Of course, Android has an advantage over Apple in terms of operating system share, because it is spread across several phone brands, and is not limited to just its own phone as Apple is. But once again, while Apple's share of overall handset sales did grow to 7.9% from 3.9%, Samsung is pulling ahead a little quicker, to a share of 20.7% from 16.1%. If you haven't seen Samsung's brand new Galaxy S III, it's very impressive, and one could argue that it's the better phone than the iPhone 4S. That said, we all know the iPhone 5 is coming this year and it could be a game changer, as is always the case with Apple products.

We're not saying Apple is getting beaten up by any means, but stats like these go to show that perhaps Apple isn't untouchable, and that other companies have learned to develop equally good, or even better systems. Thus, when you see other companies enjoying better market share growth you have to second guess the AAPL premium.