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Stocks don’t know you own them. That’s the standard reply to anyone who’s feeling paranoid because a stock they bought immediately fell on its nose. Similarly, the sports team you’re watching on television doesn’t know when you leave the room, turn your hat around in “rally cap” position, or give the evil eye to the shooter, kicker or passer. At least that’s what they tell me. The truth is, though, that while the stock may not know you’ve bought it, the stock market does. Or, rather, the market knows when a bunch of people have bought a stock because the chart reflects the rising tide of buyers.

Back on Monday, I tackled the big challenge of our healthcare system once again, beginning with a few personal stories--including the $840 bill for my wife’s sliced thumb--and finishing with a prediction that the big pharmaceutical companies were in for tough sledding once Washington begins a serious effort to reduce costs. The responses to the column were numerous and excellent, and I share the best with you here.

There is something sadly ironic about a newspaper reporting on its own demise. Certainly it’s important for readers to know what’s going on behind the scenes and for many employees, the decisions being made at their newspapers are the biggest news of the day. But it still shocks me a bit to see headlines in The Boston Globe proclaiming that its largest union rejected $10 million in wage and benefit cuts. In what seems like a “punishment,” union members will now endure 23% pay cuts. It’s almost guaranteed that the very people who wrote, edited and laid out the story will be part of that salary slash.

We recently received a very interesting proposal from a Cabot Wealth Advisory reader who suggested an essay contest with a subscription to a Cabot newsletter as the prize for the best entry. We have never done such a contest, but the reader had obviously thought through the details, and made a very persuasive case. And we liked the idea so much that we’ve decided to hold the contest! We love competitions and we like the idea of asking Cabot Wealth Advisory readers to share their stories and we think others will enjoy reading them. The entries will give us an opportunity to get to know you better, dear reader. And the winner will have a chance to get back into the market with our best advice because the prize is a FREE one-year subscription to a Cabot newsletter!

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.

Forecasts were all gloom and doom for Black Friday, with the media predicting a huge pullback in consumer spending. But on Monday, numbers were released showing that shoppers had actually increased their spending over the same period last year. Many media outlets are still predicting less shopping in the weeks before the holidays and spending was way down leading up to Black Friday, meaning the boost may not do much to help ailing retailers.

How safe are the toys your kids are playing with this Christmas? After the widespread toy recalls of 2007, I assumed the toy industry would have straightened its act out. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The Ecology Center, a Michigan nonprofit, tested 1,500 children’s toys this year for lead, cadmium, arsenic, PVC and other harmful chemicals.

Last week I ranted about overspending by American consumers and I received many interesting responses through email and the blog. I’ve included some of the best rants in today’s issue, but if you haven’t sent yours in, feel free to do so at any time. Enjoy!

If you follow a proven system (like cutting your losses), it doesn’t mean you’ll always be on the right side of things. But it does mean you’ll come out richer in the end. It’s usually the investors who don’t have a proven system that get so nervous and anxious about the market, the future, what their stocks might do, etc. Making money in the market is difficult, especially this year. So don’t feel silly or beat yourself up a poor trade or two--oftentimes, as in this case, it was just a bad market, or bad luck. Simple as that.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.