Have you ever looked at the actions of someone else and thought, “What were you thinking?” How would you like to profit off of it? Well, here’s your chance.

In the words of my father-in-law, “The stock market stinks.” Benny was lamenting over the performance of his S&P 500 index mutual fund. He bought the fund back in 1999. And he sold it just a few weeks ago.

Some sectors lend themselves beautifully to trend-following techniques. Biotechnology, for example, is a sector that goes through huge booms and busts. The reason is simple: New, world-changing technologies are a sexy story.

The optimistic mood on Wall Street is finding support in a pick-up in M&A activity.

Swiss drug maker Novartis is taking Nestle’s 77% slice US eye-care company Alcon for $39 billion. Yahoo!, meanwhile, is sending smoke signals to Microsoft that it wouldn’t be against a bid if the price is right.

According to CityWire in Britain, the FTSE 100 broke through the 6,000 level “on a flurry of major corporate merger and acquisition reports from across the Atlantic.”

It was a tale of two headlines. The Indian newspapers reported that, for the 3 month period ending March 31st, the BSE-30 Index was down 23%. This was the worst on record since the time the Index data was compiled in 1979. Meanwhile, the US newspapers reported that the US markets had their worst quarter in 5 years and the markets in the US were down 6%.