The outperformance of smaller and lower-quality stocks is typical in the first year of a bull market, and as the global economy struggles to rid itself out of this recession, this trend could remain in place. John Spence for MarketWatch reports that small-caps tend to beat large caps as cyclical sectors outperform defensive ones.

The jobs bill would give a temporary payroll tax holiday to companies that hire unemployed workers. There’s lots of skepticism that the bill will actually do much to generate jobs, but optimists think it could lead to as many as 250,000 jobs by year-end. About 8.4 million jobs have been lost since the recession began, however, so it could be just a drop in the bucket.

Meanwhile, the Senate passed a $17.6 billion jobs bill that will exempt businesses from paying 6.2% payroll taxes on new employees that had previously been out of work. The measure is designed to lower the 9.7% unemployment rate ahead of November’s midterm elections, and may have also helped to buoy markets.

But not all ETFs offer bargain basement expense ratios. As the product offerings have become increasingly specialized and targeted in recent years, average fees have been on the rise. This trend isn’t necessarily attributable to issuer greed (the low end of the expense ratio range has expanded as well), but rather to increasing complexity and granularity of exposure available through ETFs.

SDPR S&P 500 (SPY). SPY is one of the go-to ETFs for exposure to the broader market. No wonder: the S&P 500 is the index that is most watched by professional traders because the large-cap index is considered one of the broadest measures of the state of the U.S. economy. [Indexes ETF Investors Should Know.]

Then yen took some lumps over the last 15 years. Japan has a huge trade surplus and its citizens would rather save than spend. One top of that, exports from the country boomed and the carry trade took off and sent the yen down another 45% between 1995 and 2007, reports Stephen Gallo for The Financial Times. [How to Play the Carry Trade With ETFs.]

While you’re unlikely to find a pot of gold, the St. Patrick’s Day celebration is still going to happen. The party has been going on in Ireland all week, and they surely need a reprieve from their troubles. Charlie Price for Seeking Alpha reports that Ireland has been among the nations hardest hit by the global recession. Unemployment is way up, while retail sales have gone off a cliff. [Ireland's CEF Has Gotten Beat Down by the Recession.]

Despite the protests, which have been primarily non-violent, Thai equity markets have proved resilient in recent sessions, as many investors apparently believe that Abhisit and his government will survive the current crisis. This optimism has translated into big gains for the iShares MSCI Thailand Index Fund (THD), which posted a gain of 3.5% yesterday and nearly 1.5% today. Abating fears over the impact of the protests, as well as a continuation of record low interest rates in the U.S. have combined to push up demand for Thai securities. “Investors have been buying the baht and stocks as nothing serious has happened,” said Tetsuo Yoshikoshi, a senior economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. in Singapore. “Asian currencies and stocks advanced on the U.S. interest rate story and Thailand is not an exception.”

Despite calls from several members (including Africa’s two largest producers) to raise production ceilings, OPEC announced on Wednesday that it would hold its production quota steady. The decision means that oil supplies will remain relatively constant while demand is expected to strengthen as the global economy continues to emerge from the most recent recession. OPEC’s quotas have never been a true cap on production, as several members regularly exceed the stated thresholds. Still, the decision to leave the existing quota in place indicates that OPEC is intent on raising supplies methodically, and interested in sustaining a certain price level.

BABs are a special type of municipal bond designed to help municipalities raise money to invest in infrastructure projects, scribes Matt Hougan for IndexUniverse. BABs are taxable, and to offset the tax hit, the Federal government pays a 35% subsidy on the interest payment. Basically, BABs allow municipalities to offer bonds to the taxable market without paying out more interest than on tax-free bonds.

The newly emerged intelligent ETF category has become a compromise between passive and actively managed ETF styles, writes Rich White for Investopedia. Intelligent ETFs have the potential to produce above-average performance at a low cost while offering the benefits and targeted exposures of passive ETFs.

Packaged-food companies like Kraft Foods (KFT) are stepping up their presence in the emerging markets by researching which products will sell, and then marketing the products accordingly, writes Mike Hughlett for Chicago Tribune. Food companies are increasingly more focused on the growth prospects of the emerging markets as developing economies are rapidly expanding and a growing middle class emerges.

Trend 1: Small Caps Kicking You-Know-What