Keith Fitz-Gerald (Money Morning): With all the financial woes in the global economy, the worst thing an investor can do is to “freeze up.” With all the ups and downs in the market, it’s all too easy for investors to allow their emotions to take control. That’s when the smallest mistakes turn into the biggest mistakes.

There’s one antidote for this problem … remembering a few basic rules. Just embrace the 10 ideas that follow and you’ll be in line to make some serious money in the months ahead.

Rule Number 1: Invest on the Right Side of Major Economic Trends:That old investing adage “Don’t fight the Fed” serves as a good example here. Rising interest-rate environments make meaningful gains difficult to sustain – unless you know what to look for. Far too many investors got it wrong in the 2000-2003 and 2008-2009 periods by betting on growth stocks

What If Jeremy Grantham is Right?

by Alexander Green, Chief Investment Strategist

Jeremy Grantham, president of investment management firm GMO LLC, has been getting a lot of press lately.

At the market’s top, he warned of an impending bear market. At the bottom in March, he forecast a historic rally. Today, he says the market is 25% overvalued.

Should you be worried? Perhaps not.

Let’s start with Grantham’s track record. He’s made a couple of good calls lately. But does he get it right all the time? Of course not. No one does.

But even if he’s right, it wouldn’t necessarily be negative. It all depends on your time horizon. Here’s why…

How Long-Term Investors Can Benefit From A Bear Market

If you own stocks on margin, call options, or LEAP options, a market downturn could be devastating. A 50%

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Doug Kass (TheStreet.com): A force in motion, October 20, 2009. Arguably, the market has begun to decouple from fundamentals; instead, liquidity has overcome almost any other influence as every little setback has been countered with an avalanche of buying. It has fed upon itself, and it has contained corrections as many money managers play catch-up and chase strength.

• Dan Holland (RealClearMarkets): An interview with Jason Trennert, Ocober 20, 2009. Jason Trennert is the chief investment strategist at Strategas Research Partners, a Manhattan-based advisor to institutional investors, which he co-founded three years ago. Institutional Investor magazine has consistently ranked Trennert one of the top strategists on Wall Street.

• Martin Wolf (Financial Times): How to manage

Harry Dent: Bold Predictions of the Great Depression Ahead

by Alexander Green, Chief Investment Strategist Monday, October 6, 2009: Issue #1108

As they said in the movie “Poltergeist”: “They’re baaa-aaack.”

Who’s back? Harry Dent, the self-styled “economic futurist,” who presumes to tell us about the great economic booms and busts that lie ahead.

How can he possibly know these things?

According to Dent, an analysis of the “highly predictable” nature of consumer spending based on demographic trends – increasing spending during child-rearing years, peak spending as the kids leave home and slower spending during late work and retirement – reveals what lies ahead for the economy and the stock market…

Harry Dent: Dow 44,000 & Other Flimsy Forecasts

Harry Dent is a man worth listening to. After all, he has a near perfect track record – as a contrary indicator…

For example:

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Doug Kass (TheStreet.com): Madman at the gates, September 29, 2009. Despite the strong share price momentum and optimistic economic/profit consensus, I continue to hold on to the variant view that the markets have likely peaked for the year based on the existence of nontraditional headwinds, an end to decades of aggressive credit expansion and financial inventiveness, a still-vulnerable housing recovery (in the form of outsized phantom inventory challenges) and a still-fragile consumer — among other factors.

• Joshua Zumbrun (Forbes): Reasons to remain wary about housing, September 29, 2009. After signs of life this summer, here are eight factors to watch that could extend the bust.

• Tim Duy (Tim Duy’s Fed Watch): Rushing to the

Investors are approaching the week with “itchy trigger fingers”, according to chief investment strategist for Northern Trust, Jim McDonald. After last week’s housing and manufacturing data checked the market’s 7-month advance, the pits are wary going into a week set to be dominated by more reports on leading economic indicators.

The Labor Department’s monthly report due out Friday will be paramount to many, addressing concerns over unemployment. Compounding the uneasiness will be reports on industrial output, pricing, consumer confidence, factory orders and construction spending. Investors will also be watching for new outlooks in anticipation of 3Q earnings data next month, which should indicate the relative health of companies.

Last week’s losses were chalked up to poorer-than-expected performance in commodities, home sales and durable goods orders. The DJIA, S&P and NDAQ were down roughly 2% by week’s end, despite encouragement from the Fed and a seemingly rosy unemployment report showing job

What Corporate Insiders Are Telling Us

by Alexander Green, Chief Investment Strategist

Last week, Vickers Weekly Insider Report noted that corporate insiders are dumping shares like there’s no tomorrow.

Insiders sold 6.31 shares for every share they bought. Contrast that with the seemingly brilliant move insiders made at the market low in March, buying three shares for every share they sold.

Some analysts are saying there is only one interpretation to this recent turn in insider activity: The market is due for a spill.

But not so fast…

Do Corporate Insiders Really Have All the Answers?

Let’s start with an obvious fact: To a great extent, the future is always cloudy. Corporate insiders don’t know what the market is going to do any more than you or me.

For example, Vickers was already ringing the alarm back in July,

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When the “Great Crash” came in 1929, it came in October. So, too, did the infamous “Crash of ‘87.” And last year, during a tortuous October that led to even lower lows in the months to come, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index …

The U.S. Housing Market: Three (More) Reasons Real Estate Isn’t Rebounding

by Louis Basenese, Advisory Panelist

Editor’s Note: Yesterday we heard from Martin Denholm, the managing editor at Smart Profits, one of our affiliate publications which will be joining us over the next few weeks. We’ll be adding their experts to our esteemed panelists to give you the best investing ideas and advice out there. Today we follow Martin with outspoken favorite, Louis Basenese, who also gives us his take and concern for investors, on the housing market.

If ever an off-the-wall indicator existed to predict the fate of the U.S. housing market, I found it… You see, business is booming in one particular niche of the real estate industry - shrink-wrap.

That’s right. Contractors and developers are wrapping mothballed building projects in plastic, literally - from single-family homes to 25,000 square foot commercial properties.

The beneficiary? Privately-held Fast Wrap

This is the age where politicians get their chance to run up huge debts.  “Politics is about what works,” said Hillary Clinton. At least, we think it was Hillary Clinton. Someone said it. Someone who is an imbecile.

Politics is not about what works, it’s about what you can get away with. And what you can get away with is often exactly what doesn’t work at all.

Our beat is money, here at the Daily Reckoning. We specialize in fraud and folderol. We leave the homicide beat to someone else.

What the US is getting away with, from a financial point of view, in addition to counterfeiting, is very grand larceny on a Super-Madoff scale. It is borrowing trillions of dollars even though it has no way to honestly pay back the money.

Still, so eager are the lenders to part with their money that the yield on the 10-year T-note fell