There was interesting news coming out of the housing sector today -- as the housing rebound believers added a very nice nugget of information to their arguments.

According to the latest figures, mortgage applications increased 16.6%, moving to their highest level in nearly a year. This is important because on a seasonally-adjusted basis, these figures had just plunged about 14% before the holidays.

Today's uptick is a sign of strength that the spring 2007 rebound is certainly still viable.

And that makes fellows like Adam and myself very comfortable holding our three-month upside calls in a variety of housing rebound plays.

Whether it is the homebuilders, or mortgage bankers, or even raw material suppliers, our WOW charts have indicated strong upside potential in these names across the board -- and we've spent the last few weeks getting our WOW readers positioned to profit off this coming turnaround while prices are still cheap.

In other market news, crude oil prices have continued to drop in value, as prices once again fell under $55 a barrel. As I've been saying all along, $57 a barrel proved to be the buy trigger for most of 2006, and I don't see why anything should change here in 2007. Since volatility in oil prices has been so substantial in 2007 -- I feel the best way to play it (if you do at all) is via three-month upside call options. Just be prepared to withstand some big intra-day movement along the way.

In trading news, Adam and I just issued our latest WOW play -- where we're revisiting one of our best winners from the 2006 trading year. In fact, we logged a 221% gain on this play in 2006, and the charts are once more indicating that it's time to go back to the well again.

At the same time, I'm set to issue a new trade to WS Traders. As we look at the first six trading days of the 2007 calendar year, it's quite clear that this market has been seesawing back and forth without any semblance of directional momentum. In many respects, that's why we have not issued a new index play as of yet -- as any near-term trend quickly gets negated (especially on an intra-day basis).

So in situations like this, where no underlying trend is available, I like to look toward quality stock names in the blue-hip sector that are exhibiting strong uptrend characteristics. And one of the best stock names that has been impervious to intra-day directional volatility will be the latest WS Trader pick -- so stay tuned for this forthcoming alert!