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Happy Thanksgiving! I’ve written in the past that dividend investments can be a solid piece of your portfolio. I prefer growth stocks, and in that realm, dividends are basically meaningless. However, with more and more stocks, trusts, exchange-traded funds and the like, there are definitely intelligent ways to invest for yield. But beware of the supposed free lunch on Wall Street, because there is no such thing. Double-check the safety of the dividend before you jump in.

My investing idea for today is about a beaten down sector that was the market’s Fair-Haired Boy just a few months ago. Back when crude oil was sailing along at $140 a barrel (and higher), everyone knew that solar cells were the wave of the future. Silicon was in short supply and companies like First Solar made heroic runs. FSLR began 2007 trading under 30 and peaked in May 2008 at over 300. That’s a winner in anyone’s book!

Markets don’t stay down forever, and this historic selloff has created a whole raft of bargain stocks. There’s just one problem. How do you know when to get back into the market? Here’s an easy way to tell, one that’s based on one of Cabot’s powerful set of market timing indicators, the Cabot Tides.

In my mind, just as the failure of the sub-prime market triggered the collapse of the housing industry, the collapse of the housing industry will trigger the deflation of our debt bubble. Eventually, if all goes well, the end result will be a smaller debt load for the U.S. and a smaller debt load for American consumers as well ... which in my mind means living in houses we can afford.

To say that we live in historic times would be an understatement. We’ve all been shaken by more earth-shaking news in just the past few months than we’ve seen in the prior decade. There’s been the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the disappearance of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual and Wachovia, the TARP rescue plan and now the potential bailout of the Detroit automakers. Oh, and did we mention hedge fund redemptions and failures, and now commercial real estate problems?!? And the market, of course, has reacted.

The economic news is probably going to get worse before it gets better, but it’s likely that the stock market won’t care. The stock market looks ahead and has probably already priced in most of the economic downtown. So be prepared for once-in-a-lifetime bad economic readings, but don’t expect the stock market to follow them down.

Proposals to use lampposts with wind turbines and to build a windfarm in Texas are propelling the alternative energy industry forward. China is aiming to use more wind energy by 2020 and oil is hovering around $100, which means there are more opportunities for companies in the alternative energy sector.

The past weekend brought the news that you can now pay $149 to get your child’s DNA tested to determine whether you’ve got a future Olympic athlete or NFL Hall-of-Famer on your hands ... or a first class couch potato. The focus of the genetic test is the ACTN3 gene, which instructs the body to produce a protein, alpha-actinin-3, that is found specifically in fast-twitch muscles ... the muscles most valuable in power and speed sports. In brief, the makeup of the gene helps determine whether a person might be better suited for sports that require power and strength, or endurance, or general activity ... or none of the above.

Just wanted to start with a quick word of optimism about the future of the stock market, and the potential for making money in the months and years to come. I was pleased to attend the Contrary Opinion Forum in Vermont last weekend with Timothy Lutts--Tim’s been going for 22 years straight, while this is my fourth or fifth visit since I came to Cabot back in 1999--and it’s always a treat.

I’ve taken a few weeks off from the series I’m writing to help explain Cabot’s publications, but today I’m going to discuss Cabot Top Ten Report.

Not all of our editors work at the Cabot offices in Salem, Massachusetts, but they drop in from time to time for us to discuss how things are going now and where we want them to be in the future. We were fortunate enough to have J. Royden Ward, who lives in Florida and is the editor of Cabot Benjamin Graham Value Letter, in the office this week recapping his recent trip to New York City to attend the Value Investing Congress.

Two weeks ago, I attended the Value Investing Congress in New York City, and was fortunate to listen to quite a few very successful value investors. I also was able to meet speakers and other investors to learn more about their approach to investing in the current turbulent stock market. The experience was very enlightening, and I came away with some valuable insights that I want to pass along to you.

At the beginning of August, Cabot Benjamin Graham Value Letter featured four buy recommendations that collectively have outperformed the stock market indexes by a noticeable margin. I’m featuring one of the stocks here because it’s still clearly undervalued.

A team of reporters from Reuters calculated how much the world’s investment banks had disclosed writing down from derivatives in the past year, from the third quarter of 2007 through the second quarter in 2008, ending July 31. The total? $404 billion. In just four quarters, Wall Street wiped out its previous 10 years of profits. Even the airlines aren’t that bad.

Two weeks ago I wrote here about the massive buildup of both government and individual debt in last 70 years. I noted that this bubble of debt appeared to have popped in the past year. And I speculated that a very long (decades-long) period of debt shrinkage and balance sheet improvement might be in the cards. Then I asked for your opinions.

On Thursday night, I saw the movie, “I.O.U.S.A.,” which focuses on the national deficit. It has been hailed as “An Inconvenient Truth,” without a celebrity-type lead like Al Gore, but I found it equally interesting. While it’s not a “sexy” topic (as one man in the film kept reminding everyone), unlike global warming, it’s something we can all agree on: Our nation is in debt up to its ears and way past that.

I was lucky when I first began investing. I didn’t learn how to pick stocks from a textbook, or a well-meaning but misinformed professor. No, I first got interested in stocks when my dad subscribed to the Cabot Market Letter back in the mid-1990s, and learned right away the value of doing the right things, and avoiding the wrong things.

Last week I wrote about the government’s $700 bailout plan and asked for your opinions. I got an incredible response, both by email and on the blog. I really appreciate hearing what you had to say and it helped me to sort out the whole mess in my head. Today instead of writing a column, I’m just going to reprint many of your letters. Some of you were outraged about the plan, while others urged its passing and still others came up with their own plans for the $700 billion.

Since 2004, value investors from across the country have converged on the Value Investing Congress, and this year our very own J. Royden Ward, editor of Cabot Benjamin Graham Value Letter, is going to attend. It’s taking place in New York City on October 6 and 7 (with a pre-conference workshop on October 5) and will be attended by value investors and money managers from around the world seeking to enhance their performance.

Admittedly, the list of good-looking stocks is extremely small these days; that’s how it is at market bottoms. But the few stocks that do reveal strong investor support are worth following closely--particularly if they have great growth stories--because they’re the stocks most likely to lead the next market advance. One sector we’re keeping on eye on is the airlines.