With the Nasdaq poised to resume leadership among U.S. stock indexes, technology looks like a sector with bullish potential. Even so, smart investors know that picking the right stock will still be extremely important.

One niche we like is cloud computing. We’ve previously highlighted the cloud computing trend. We talked about several cloud computing stocks that may help investors profit from the group’s rapid growth. Today we add one more name to that list: Informatica Corp. (NYSE:INFA). California-based Informatica boasts some strong fundamentals. In the most recent quarter, Informatica reported its profits rose 29% and revenue surged 21%.

Analysts are forecasting earnings growth of 11% in 2010 and 20% in 2011. Those are impressive statistics. According to Investor’s Business Daily, which features Informatica among its top 100 stocks, the number of mutual funds owning Informatica shares rose to 213 from 188 during the last quarter. That’s another positive sign that the smart money crowd is taking note of the stock.

Informatica is taking steps to enter new business segments, highlighted by the company’s January acquisition of Siperian, a master data management company. This was Informatica’s first foray into that space and…

The US Senate voted yesterday to extend jobless benefits for the unemployed.  The benefits, which were set to expire, continue to extend unemployment to up to 99 weeks.  Initial jobless claims decreased by six thousand for the first week in March, but continuing claims are still up (About a thirty-seven thousand increase).  Stocks opened lower today, partly as a result of the continuingly poor unemployment level.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) CEO, Vikram Pandit, released an official statement today regarding the companies Citibank division.  There are predictions that the bank could grow by approximately five percent for the next two years.  This would give the company a twenty billion dollar profit margin by the end of 2012, according to the Financial Times.  This scheduled announcement has caused shares of the large bank to rise early this morning (3/11/10).

The US trade deficit has unexpectedly decreased.  The deficit was expected to be approximately $41 billion in the first month of this year, but data showed that America’s imports of oil and cars declined in January.  Exports were also down 0.3%, but imports dropped by a much larger 1.7%.  The trade deficit sits at $37.3 billion, 6.6% lower than in December…

Claymore, the ETF sponsor that has closed 17 funds and has 12 more on ETF Deathwatch, introduced three new ETFs yesterday (3/9/10). They appear destined for a similar fate.

The three new ETFs are Claymore Wilshire 5000 Total Market ETF (WFVK), Claymore Wilshire 4500 Completion ETF (WXSP), and Claymore Wilshire US REIT ETF (WREI). If these sound to you like clones of existing ETF products, then you are not alone. Claymore is marketing them as access to the “pure and complete” indexes from Wilshire. However, the Wilshire indexes and Dow Jones Total Market indexes are essentially duplicates of each other.

According to an April 2009 press release from Dow Jones, “the Dow Jones Total Stock Market Index family is identical in all aspects to the former Dow Jones Wilshire index family, including methodology, composition and historical data back to 1987.”

To Claymore these new ETFs are pure and complete. To me, they are redundant and unnecessary “me too” products. But don’t take my word for it, review the following and decide for yourself:

Claymore Wilshire 5000 Total Market ETF (WFVK) (summary) seeks investment results that correspond to the performance of the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index. The fund’s expense ratio…