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Corporate profits up, so why are stock prices down?

Maybe because Americans can't afford to keep buying stocks

Profits this year for Standard & Poor's 500 Index companies "will jump 34 percent in 2010," up from an expected 27 percent three months ago, "according to more than 8,000 estimates compiled by Bloomberg," writes Bloomberg here. Yet the 500 Index is down 16 percent in the past six weeks, to its lowest level since the 2008 stock market collapse.

Time to buy? The people who sell stocks for a living want you to think so. And how smart are they? Janney Capital Markets research chief Gary Schatz this morning sent out a first-half performance report on his firm's "Best Ideas for 2010" stocks, and... they're down 1.7%... thought that's less bad than the 6.6% drop in the S&P 500.

Biggest winners from the list: North Carolina medical-properties owner Cogdell Spencer was up 23%; Investors Bancorp up 20%. Biggest losers: South African smart-card tech developer Net 1 UEPS Technologies Inc., down 33%; Tetra Tech and Tivo Inc, down 28% each.

Maybe Janney ought to stick to Philadelphia-area stocks. All three local companies on its Best Ideas list were up in the first half: insurance giant Ace Ltd. up 3%; South Jersey Industries Inc., the gas company, up 14%; and online-sales outsourcer GSI Commerce Inc., up 13%.

Janney analyst Shawn Milne is extra bullish on GSI, citing its string of recent acquisitions (VendorNet software, M3Mobile, MBS and Fetchbook marketers) and calling it "the IBM of E-commerce" whose "Interactive Marketing Service" unit makes it attractive to larger retailers as an in-house business partner.