Cash-strapped consumers are eating more meals at home and that's slathering J.M. Smucker's (SJM) bottom line in sweet, sticky profits.

The packaged-food maker said Friday that fiscal second-quarter earnings boomed more than 170%, blowing past Wall Street's estimates by 18 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters. Even more impressive, revenue leaped by 52%.

Smucker may be best known for its eponymous jams and jellies -- other brands include Jif, Hungry Jack, Crisco and Pillsbury -- but it's the Folgers coffee business the company acquired from Procter & Gamble (PG) last year that's jolting growth.

Investors, analysts and strategists forever debate whether the equity markets are properly valued. That's the whole point of investing, after all, to figure out whether an asset is cheap, and thus poised to go higher, or too expensive, and so set for a fall. There's a bull and a bear case for pretty much any security, but this magical mystery rally has put the debate in especially sharp relief these days. As DailyFinance has noted, stocks look topped out on a technical basis and overpriced to dot-com bubble heights, but also perhaps reasonably valued or even, yes, cheap if you look at price relative to sales.

Mark Twain famously said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. (If it didn't, technical analysis wouldn't work at all.) It also makes comparing today's bull market to that of 1982 an ear-splitting and scary exercise. As the second nastiest recession since World War II -- and the last time we had 10.2% unemployment -- one might think comparing 1982 to 2009 would offer insights into share prices. Barry Ritholtz certainly thinks so. The CEO and director of research at FusionIQ put together such a comparison Thursday, setting the 1982 rally against today's, and it ain't pretty.

Stocks fell sharply Thursday after a sector downgrade and an overseas sell-off caused skittish investors to grow concerned that the rally has outpaced the potential for future earnings growth.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) dropped 93 points, or 0.9%, to 10,334. The broader S&P 500 ($INX) fell 14 points, or 1.3%, to 1,096, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ($COMPX) shed 36 points, or 1.7%, to finish at 2,157.

Retail investors may be forgiven if they view bank stocks with great skepticism. After all, the financial sector touched off the conflagration that ultimately became the Great Recession. But that doesn't mean there aren't some bargains in the banking sector, and noted bank analyst Dick Bove of Rochdale Securities says he has a doozy.

Bove published a report last week banging the drum on Bank of New York Mellon (BK) as one of the most compelling stories in the financial sector -- with one of the worst performing stocks.

It's no secret we're poised for the Mother of All Jobless Recoveries. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke can't just spew that out, of course, but his remarks Monday -- and economists' estimates -- make the prognosis for the nation's unemployed morbidly grim.

Unemployment is a lagging indicator, meaning it won't bounce back until well after the recovery is underway. But even then, the consensus is that joblessness will improve at a glacially slow pace -- so woe unto all of us if the consensus is wrong and the outlook is even worse.

Kohl's (KSS) is managing the downturn in consumer spending with remarkable ease. The mid-price department store chain posted a 21% gain in third-quarter net income last week thanks to strong sales. As is usual to see this earnings season, cost cuts helped boost the bottom line, but the retailer also benefited from its expansion of exclusive brands.

Kohl's has a history of getting that value-versus-style proposition just right -- something that bodes well for the stock as frugal consumers become increasingly careful with their discretionary dollars. Indeed, the company appears to be eating some of its competitors' lunches.

Given all the crazy, extraordinary stuff the Federal Reserve has been dragooned into doing in the last year ("quantitative easing," anyone?), it's easy to forget that it has only two, very simple mandates: price stability and full employment. Reading between the lines of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech Monday, it's clear the Fed will utterly fail on the second part of its directive for years to come.

In other words, we're in for the mother of all jobless recoveries. Indeed, the best thing Bernanke could say about the unemployment situation is that it "may be getting worse more slowly."

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is set to speak Monday at an Economic Club of New York luncheon. But don't expect him to say anything that will cause the attendees to gag on their frisee. As much as American savers and U.S. trading partners are freaking out about the Incredible Shrinking Dollar, Bernanke isn't going to do anything about it -- apart from talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Morgan Stanley (MS) told clients Friday that the chairman's speech might be the "key in determining the path of the dollar into year-end," with any hawkish hints probably boosting the greenback for a little while. But apart from a mild short-term bump, the dollar has no place to go but down. And that's precisely what Bernanke wants.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) shrugged off some disappointing data to post solid gains Friday, helped by better-than-expected earnings from key consumer bellwhethers. The blue-chip barometer added 1% for the week, extending its winning ways to a second straight week.



At the closing bell the Dow was up 73 points, or 0.7%, to 10,270. Equities shrugged off a disappointing report on consumer confidence, focusing instead on earnings reports. The broader S&P 500 ($INX) gained 6 points, or 0.6% to finish at 1,093, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ($COMPX) rose 19, or 0.9%, to 2,168.

Leave it to Switzerland's version of Dr. Doom to make the latest apocalyptic pronouncement on the future of the U.S. dollar -- and the outlook for gold prices.

Marc Faber, investment advisor and fund manager to the uber-wealthy, says gold will forever stay above $1,000 an ounce. If you're unfamiliar with Faber's pitch-black outlook for the future of the Western economies and the developed world in general, well, he's probably best known as the author of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report.