Just because the bulls are being goaded by the market's matadors doesn't mean that you have to share their fate.

Washington is finally learning its lesson from Wall Street. For years and years, Wall Street has refined how it works the markets. Every quarter we go through the same thing over and over: whereby the analysts that are on the payrolls of the banks that get the fees from the companies that the analysts report on do their quid pro quo.

The analysts give their estimates about how the earnings per share will end up for each quarter and - lo and behold - the companies tend to come in with their number a penny or so better. Everybody cheers and then moves on to the next corporate quarterly release.

But even some of the best running shticks have run their courses, as more and more of the so-called professional market guys learned the routine. So, while the unwashed masses would get the analysts' published estimates, the inside pros would get the real estimated numbers, which would be quietly whispered at various presentations and/or investment analyst meetings.

This makes for great copy for the pop financial media. So now we all get the supposed "whisper" number estimates leading up to the official corporate releases, and - guess what - we still end up seeing plenty of companies beating even the so-called insider estimates.

And it doesn't matter if the estimates are crummy. A company can be expected to turn in lower earnings numbers or - heaven forbid - even losing numbers, but as long as they exceed the estimates, hurrahs are heard around the trading desks and trading floors of brokerages around the markets.

Uncle Sam's Funny Numbers

Now, there are plenty of politicians that you and I both know, who aren't that bright or even have all of their marbles.

But even the dimmest bulb of a politico can know how to keep his seat as well as keeping his party in power. It comes down to managing expectations, just as Wall Street has been doing for years.

Washington is pretty darned good at getting us happy and excited about even the most dire of news.

Take for example the monthly employment data. Every first Friday of every month we have what my old trader and pal Chuck Butler of Everbank (www.everbank.com) calls Friday Jobs Jamboree.

And on that Friday, including this past one, we get the jobs number that's compiled and released by the US Department of Labor. Now, don't think for a minute that the monthly data are completely genuine. After all, just as many criticize the Chinese National Statistics Agency (NSA) for how it comes up with its GDP and other data so quickly after any particular month or quarter - and seemingly out of nowhere - the same should be said of the US government data.

The Department of Labor focuses a few eyeballs at various surveys...crunches various numbers into various models...and out pops an estimate of jobs.

And just like we get all excited and pumped up over earnings numbers - we get pumped up over jobs.

Capitol Hill knows this. So, we start with an estimate that's pessimistic - but then we get a release that's better - and the media and the market both love it.

Such is the case with the current data. We got an estimate from all of the Wall Street guys of job losses running into the mid to upper 300,000s. But, as you've learned, we "only" lost 247,000 jobs in the prior month - and you've probably heard the cheering going on around the nation.

And even better, the unemployment rate was slashed from 9.5 percent to only 9.4 percent. Great, right?

Better For Real

And for many it is better. Even if the numbers have been goosed and are created by estimates anyway, and even after later revisions by the US Department of Labor - as it gets more data to refine the number in coming months - it's likely that fewer folks lost their jobs in July than the month prior.

Nevertheless, we're still losing jobs, not creating them. It's jobs that show the economy is genuinely expanding, and it's jobs that create the ability to consume more, and qualify for more credit, and so on and so on as an economy performs.

Without positive economic performance, it's hard to justify markets pricing stocks higher and higher. Because even if companies manage to exceed massaged expectations - just like Uncle Sam is working his own numbers - the real bellwether of market value is in the actual performance of companies, just like the proof for a successful government is in the actual performance of the economy.

For an advance indicator of an improving economy, look to the credit markets.

I look at the credit trends for consumers, businesses and corporations when I'm assessing whether the underpinnings of the economy and the markets are legitimately improving. And right now, consumer and business credit is still contracting, even while the big corporations - particularly banks - keep getting special help and support from Uncle Sam.

Until consumers - and more importantly, small to mid-sized businesses - see real improvement in getting the banks and the rest of the credit markets going positive again, it's going to be really hard to see how this economy can legitimately drive higher, broader and sustained market prices.

I've produced a special report on some of my favorite investments for this bad economy. It contains material some of you may have seen before, but it's all updated and I want you to get it before anyone else. The report is called 4 Steps to High, Safe Retirement Income and includes my model portfolio for retired investors. You can have it with my compliments when you sign up for a free subscription to my weekly newsletter, By George.

Lastly, as many of you know - I'm working in a newer, online capacity to deliver my research, news and my investment calls. And I'm not alone. With many print newsletters running into economic and market challenges, more and more quality market research is being put on the web.

This isn't news - but what is news involves quality and not just quantity. Anybody can Google just about any investment term and get millions of results. But if you really sift through most of those results, you're more likely to come up with less accurate information than what you knew yourself, or - even worse - information that might actually be deadly for your portfolio.

I'm in the process of highlighting more and more of the genuine quality websites for investors to use to find good and independently-sourced information on the markets, the economy and individual stocks. And one of the best comes from an old salt of the newsletter industry and a good comrade in arms of mine: Steven Halpern. He now runs a very engaging website, The Stock Advisors (www.thestockadvisors.com). It's a nicely targeted way to begin a search for informed opinion within the entire range of investment categories.