When I was a kid my mom used to get angry and ask me why I always pointed out the negative things. Conversely, if I ever got into trouble, I would plead with my parents, asking them why my "one" indiscretion outweighed all the good.

I think the same see-saw logic holds true for the stock market; in particular, the ongoing Bull market. As the late great Rodney Dangerfield would say, "The bull market can't get any respect."

More than four years into the bull market, investors haven't gotten over the horrendous 2002-02 bear market. Granted, a lot of penny stock investors got hammered between 2000-02; sadly many haven't seen the bright light that is the current bull.

Perhaps it's time we did. Many penny stock investors are still worried about another devastating bear market. But history tells us that the 2000-02 downturn was likely, a once-in-a-generation-event.

A similar market upheaval hit in 1973-74, but before that, you have to go back to the Great Depression to find such awful losses.

Despite what many profess, today's market environment offers a lot of positives. While economic growth is slowing, a recession seems unlikely. Corporate profits are growing, unemployment is falling, and the Federal Reserve has stopped raising rates.

And merger mania on Wall Street shows there is corporate optimism...and that the every day investor still finds stocks attractive.

Further, this past Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial closed above 12,500 for the first time as year-end bargain hunters continue to buy stocks. Wednesday's session was marked by thin volume, typical of the week between Christmas and New Year's.

Wednesday's advance leaves major indexes heading toward double-digit gains for the year. The Dow is now up 16.7% this year, while the Nasdaq has risen 10.2%. The Penny Stock Index is up 9.3% since August, when the Index first began monitoring penny stocks.

Can the stock markets repeat the spectacular Bull Run for the third year running in 2007, or will the law of averages catch up in the New Year? Said one financial planner, "the market has a tendency to do what most of us think it won't do. It loves to humiliate us."

Paul J. Lim said recently in the New York Times that while small and large cap stocks often take turns leading the market, success among these competing assets isn't mutually exclusive.

Consider the period from 1995-1999, when large-cap stocks dominated the markets. During this stretch blue-chip returned double-digit gains in five consecutive calendar years. But while the small caps trailed the large caps, they still managed to produce double-digit gains in four of those five years.

Heading into 2007, many investors again believe that large caps are likely to outperform smaller stocks. Keep in mind they said the same thing last December, and, as we all know, small caps outperformed large caps in 2006.

Granted this is the fifth year of the bull market, which means that this rally is older than average. Historically, small stocks start to lose some of their advantage in a bull market's latter stages.

But remember, penny stocks can and will continue to defy logic. And the market itself, can and will do the same.

Still, even without a Ouija board, experience shows that penny stocks outperform large caps in the short run. Which is what penny stocks are all about; explosive growth over short time frames.

Still afraid of the bull market in 2007? There will always be things that can go wrong. That's a given. But in the end, penny stock investors are usually better off betting on the economy muddling through.

As I noted last week, market-watchers expect small-cap stocks to shine in January as investors clear out old winners and make room for more speculative issues.

For penny stock investors, it seems clear that small-caps are probably the most lucrative source for growth in 2007. And an arena where the Bull always rages on.