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Stocks Face Rough Month; Here's What You Can Do

Topics:Economy (U.S.) | Economy (Global) | Stock Market

Companies:Strayer Education Inc | Apollo Group Inc | Google Inc

By: Jeff Cox | 03 Dec 2008 | 03:12 PM ET

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Though December is historically one of the stock market's best months, 2008 could be a volatile exception.

Christmas on Wall Street
Richard Drew / AP

Most market analysts have hopes for at best a tepid performance as the market closes its worst year since the Great Depression. While the Thanksgiving holiday saw stocks stage their best five-day run in 75 years, there's scant hope a sustained upside run will carry through the balance of the year.

"We probably will continue to see the incredible volatility that we've been seeing," says Ryan Detrick, an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati. "Unfortunately we do think the market will continue to drift lower over the intermediate term, and that includes December."

That doesn't mean there won't be ways to make money.

Detrick himself thinks privately run education companies should benefit from laid-off workers looking to go back to school (See his picks below).

And short-dated corporate and municipal bonds also remain popular among investment experts for the duration of 2008 and into the year ahead. Still others are betting on home builders to make a comeback following a miserable two-year run that should be capped by plummeting mortgage rates.

Most agree that the current climate favors stock-picking over broad-based index plays, and many advisers are saying that diversified portfolios with a bias against risk are vital until the economy stabilizes and the market becomes safe again.

Video: Jack Bouroudjian talks about the markets.

"At these low levels I would tend to say you'd want to be seeking out high-quality companies for longer-term investment opportunities, not just looking to flip on a weekly or daily basis," says Sam Stovall, chief investment officer at Standard & Poor's, who told CNBC he is nonetheless calling for a "downer in December."

Too Much Optimism?

Ironically, Detrick thinks one of the main problems with the market is a refusal by investors to accept that things are really bad.

As such, they tend to be too eager to call bottoms and get overly enthusiastic when markets show any signs of recovery. Legg Mason's star stock-fund manager, Bill Miller, became the latest to join the bandwagon, declaring Wednesday that the "bottom has been made" in stocks and sparking a market rally.

That has prevented full-scale capitulation, when retail investors finally bail out of the market and a true bottom can be formed, Detrick says.

"We've seen a lot of speculative call-buying when we see these bounces," says Detrick, referring to the options purchase that occurs when an investor thinks a stock is heading higher. "When people jump in on these vicious bounces to the bullish side, that's not how bottoms are formed."

For Investors:

Overall, Schaeffer's remains net short of the market, meaning that it believes stocks as a whole are likely to fall. In particular, Detrick says he's fearful of commodities and the big technology names, which he said are attracting a lot of options activities on the call side under the reasoning that stocks like Google [GOOG Loading... () ], which has dropped more than 60 percent in the past year, are undervalued.

Instead, stocks could retest their October lows and fall even further before a true market turnaround.

"We wouldn't be surprised to see it break those (lows) and maybe that will get major fear coming in and people will stop trying to pick bottoms," Detrick says. "We want to see skepticism, some put-buying coming in."

Of the stock plays Detrick likes, he's looking at secondary education providers Apollo Group [APOL Loading... () ] and Strayer Education [STRA Loading... () ] and advising clients to hedge using exchange-traded funds that benefit from moves lower in the indexes.