The stock market has gotten pummeled of late, and it doesn’t really make sense. A handful of giant companies are finally turning in positive earnings reports, and investors are just shrugging the shoulders. Perhaps, it’s Obama’s plan to penalize the banks? Or it’s the health care bill? Or the fact that five banks have failed this year?

Investors feel shaky. Nonetheless, there are glimmers of hope out there. A lot of them that shining though yesterday:

1) Amazon holiday profit beats, sees strong 1st qtr. From Reuters, we learned Amazon.com, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Q4 revenue was up 42 percent. That beat estimates, and the company sees an even rosier Q1 in 2010.

2) Samsung Jumps Back to Profit in 4th Quarter. South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. earned $2.6 billion in Q4 2009. That’s an improvement of nearly $20 billion over the year before.

3) New Windows helps Microsoft see profit jump 60%. “The software giant’s revenue climbs 14% in the fiscal second-quarter, boosted by demand for its Windows 7 operating system,” the LA Times reports on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) .

4) In a big turnaround, Ford posts a profit of $2.7 billion. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) posted a $2.7 billion profit for the year. That’s 86 cents per share versus a loss of $6.50 per share in 2008!

Here are some more:

Kia 4Q Net Soars; Targets 3% Global Market Share In 2010
Nokia Profit Rises on Smartphone Sales and Cost-Cutting; Nokia Corp. (NYSE:NOK)
Its First Profit in 5 Quarters Pushes Kodak Stock Up 25%; Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:EK) shares shot up 24.6 percent on the news!
P.&G. and Colgate Post Higher Sales in Quarter; The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) and Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL)
SanDisk posts 4Q profit on memory card sales; SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK)

What’s it all mean?

Samsung’s sales seem most promising. The company reported that most of their strength came from the sale of flatscreen TVs, cellphones and computer chips. In case we’re wont to forget in America, flatscreen TVs and computers are big-ticket, luxury items (even if they’re “marked down”). Once consumers start shelling out more cash for goodies at home, companies will start hiring, unemployment will fall, the GDP will rise and America just might feel like America again. That’s the theory anyway. And it just might be true – at least until inflation hits.

The biggest beneficiaries of the powerful stock market rally since March have been small, speculative stocks; companies with little or no history of profits and a record of burning through cash. In a recent New York Times article, Mark Hulbert gives the contrasting example of shares in Wal-Mart and shares in Sanmina-SCI.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has a long history of profits and very little debt. Since the stock market rally in March, the company’s shares have risen only 14 percent.

Sanmina-SCI Corporation (NASDAQ:SANM), on the other hand, “is loaded with debt and in each of the last eight years has lost money.” Still, the company’s shares are up more than 600 percent. That makes Wal-Mart’s gain look laughable.

Still, the cream has a way of rising to the top in the stock market. Speculative stocks might not be around in 5 years, but certainly, Wal-Mart will.

Mr. Hulbert proposes at least one reason why large cap stocks are underperforming right now: The government’s stimulus program. He quotes Jeremy Granthman of GMO, a money-management firm in Boston: “The sizable disparity of junk over quality should not have come as a big surprise given how massive the government’s stimulus has been. It’s almost a certain bet that high-quality blue chips will outperform lower-quality stocks over the longer term.”

Eventually money will swing toward companies making money. We’re just not sure if that’ll happen now or six months from now. In the meantime, allocating your portfolio between the two is likely the best approach. Giving up gains of 600 percent is, after all, hard to resist.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) had a great Christmas. The stock was up $14 per share (7.4 percent) in a shortened trading week with most of the gains coming on Thursday – when the stock shot up nearly 3.5 percent. Here’s three reasons why you shouldn’t be afraid to buy their stock; even after it hit a record for the highest share price in the company’s history:

1. The App Store. Apple’s store for iPhone applications is basically a flea market for software. You can access it from your phone, and – after you enter your password – download free or paid apps. You can do anything with their apps: from getting stock market quotes (which I do daily) to playing with koi fish in a fake digital pond.

All told, there are about 100,000 apps in the store right now, and Apple gets 30 percent of the profits from the sale of each paid app. There are enough sales right now for the company to be earning an estimated $1 billion a year – just from their apps! To put it another way, Apple’s making $2.7 million every day off software they didn’t make.

2. Asia. The iPhone is utterly dominant in Japan (where it has 46 percent of the market share!). While sales of the iPhone have stumbled in China, there’s lots of room for growth. From CultofMac.com:

“In Japan, the iPhone has 46 percent of the market. That comes after a slow start in Japan, a lesson some thought could also apply to China.”

In the same article, the author argues that many Chinese prefer phones that use styluses since they accept Chinese handwriting. That could be a major hurdle for the phone there, or it could be a learning experience for Apple, which will help them tweak their offering – something they desperately need to do.

3. The Tablet. A lot of analysts are saying the reason for the pop in the stock’s price on Thursday was a snowball of rumors that Apple’s about to release some new technology. Dubbed “the tablet”, the company still hasn’t officially acknowledged the product, but just about everyone else in the world has. It’s rumored to be the equivalent of a giant iPhone. It would sit in your lap or on a tabletop and be fully touchscreen. It’s a unusual idea, and that has people excited about it. If nothing else, it’s a golden chance to buy the rumor and sell the news.