Table of Contents

1.  Market Update
2.  First Trust DJ Global Select Dividend (FGD)
3.  PowerShares Global Agriculture (PAGG)
4.  Additional Investing Ideas
5.  Investor Trivia -- A Triple-Digit Trend
6.  Featured Topic -- The Little-Known Asset Class Boosted Its Yields By +151%
7.  Free Investing Resources

Today's Top Stock Picks

Get the World's Most Reliable Dividends at a Near Double-Digit Yield
This fund has collected the world's richest and most reliable dividend payers. And after last year's market pullback, this cream of the dividend crop is yielding more than 9%. Read More. . .

It's the Perfect Time to Tap Into Agriculture's Growth
The short-term decline in commodity prices has resulted in a rare opportunity to get in on one of the strongest, long-term growth trends. PowerShares Global Agriculture (PAGG) offers a perfect way to profit from the world's constantly growing demand for food. Read More. . .

Market Update

Well, it's official. We can now finally close the book on 2008, and this past year will go down as the worst for the Dow Jones since Herbert Hoover was President. And it wasn't just stock investors that suffered-- bonds, commodities, real estate and other alternative investment also struggled mightily.

On the bright side, the major averages have rebounded strongly over the past month, rallying more than +20% off their late-November lows. And the market managed to extend those gains this past week by shaking off another round of dismal economic data.

Over the past few days we've seen factory orders dive and consumer confidence readings plunge to the lowest levels in history. Meanwhile, oil prices ticked sharply higher, in part because of refinery shutdowns and escalating tensions in the Middle East. But traders took some comfort from the fact that GMAC (the auto financing wing of General Motors) is reorganizing and being showered with government cash.

Other than that it was a fairly quiet week relative to the chaos of recent months. And with optimism slowly returning, stocks clawed their way forward ahead of the New Years holiday. Better still, 2009 started out with a bang, with bargain hunters putting money to work and sending the Dow to its third straight triple-digit gain on Friday.

I wouldn't read too much into the past few days, as trading volume has been characteristically light (which tends to skew price movements). Nevertheless, given the year we've just had, most will gladly take gains any way they can get them. However, real progress might be tougher to come by until we've seen concrete signs that the global economy has begun to dig out of this deep hole.

In the meantime, there are always funds that can make it worth your while to wait. Below, we will take a look at one of the most promising, the First Trust DJ Global Select Dividend (NYSE: FGD, $14.49) -- which focuses exclusively on the world's most generous and secure dividend payers and offers a hefty yield above 9%.

Also on tap for today's digest, Market Advisor editor Paul Tracy explains why investors are likely to reap some bountiful gains from PowerShares Global Agriculture (Nasdaq: PAGG, $17.69). The portfolio has a number of powerful global trends working in its favor, not the least of which is a growing appetite for meat in China and other growing markets.

Good Investing!

-- Nathan Slaughter
Co-Editor
TopStockAnalysts Digest

I first started looking at First Trust DJ Global Select Dividend (NYSE: FGD, $14.49) in the August 2008. The fund tracks the performance of the Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index -- an income-oriented benchmark reserved for some of the world's most elite dividend payers.

The index starts by taking every stock in the world's 24 largest developed markets and then lopping off all but those with the strongest yields. But it takes more than just generous distributions to enter this exclusive society.

As we've been reminded lately, a dividend is only as secure as the firm that stands behind it. So all candidates are put through another level of screening to ensure that payments are backed by adequate earnings. Specifically, all members must maintain payout ratios below 80% (60% for U.S. and European companies) -- a level suggesting ample cash flows to safely cover dividend obligations with room to spare. Finally, a company's current dividend payments must be above its five-year average to qualify for inclusion, so the fund favors firms boosting distributions rather than lowering them.

With these safety valves in place and thousands of stocks to choose from, FGD only takes the top 100. Shareholders will have a stake in reliable U.S. firms like AT&T (NYSE: T), but the vast majority of assets (80%) are invested overseas, primarily in Australia and Europe. Top holdings include France Telecom, Hong Kong Electric, and Macquarie Infrastructure.

Unfortunately, rich dividend yields haven't been enough to keep FGD from sliding with the rest of the global markets. In fact, the shares have lost more than half their value so far this year. But this sell-off has only sweetened an already juicy yield considering the fund's holdings all have margins of safety that make them less susceptible to dividend reductions.

Of course, no fund is immune, as withering profits have forced many companies to axe their payments during this economic slump to preserve capital. Not surprisingly, most of this damage has been done in the financial sector. According to Standard & Poor's, dividend reductions pulled $23 billion out of investors' pockets last quarter, and financial stocks accounted for roughly $21 billion of that.

So it stands to reason that the financial sector (which once soaked up almost half of FGD's assets) now accounts for just 38%. But the index will be reconstituted later this month, and holdings that have fallen by the wayside will soon be jettisoned and replaced.

In the meantime, the portfolio was already generating net investment income of $0.063 for every dollar in assets as of September 30th. With most portfolio holdings dishing out the same dividend payments that they were a few months ago, that income to assets ratio is likely higher now following this pullback.

In fact, distributions of $1.33 per share over the last year now add up to a robust yield of 9.2%. And that rate stands on its own without the aid of portfolio leverage or options writing.

I liked FGD back in August, but I love the fund now after this overdone sell-off -- with its average portfolio holding sliding below book value and trading at just four times cash flows.

Focused on investing in firms involved in the global agriculture industry PowerShares Global Agriculture (Nasdaq: PAGG, $17.69) is an ETF with exposure to companies involved in grain processing, fertilizer production and genetically modified seeds.

There are two major trends underway that are behind rapidly rising global food demand: increased meat consumption in the developing world and the biofuels industry.

In 1961 your average Chinese consumer only ate about 3.81 kilograms of meat per year. But that figure has steadily risen over the years; as of 2003, annual per-capita meat consumption stood at just under 55 kilograms in China. That represents a doubling in meat consumption since the early 1990s alone.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, a human on a grain-intensive diet will consume roughly 180 to 200 kilograms of grain annually to maintain a healthy weight. The same consumer on a meat-intensive diet will consume 700 to 800 kilograms of grain indirectly; grain is fed to livestock that's eventually slaughtered for meat. That means even a small increase in demand for meat in China spells a massive increase in global grain demand.

And in the developed world, another key trend is driving growth in consumption of agricultural products -- fast-growing demand for biofuels. In the U.S., the federal government passed a law late in 2007 requiring the nation use some 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022. The main biofuel in the U.S. today is corn-based ethanol. While the new law requires increased use of ethanol from on non-agricultural commodities, corn-based ethanol is likely to remain dominant for at least the next five to seven years.

And biofuels aren't just a U.S. phenomenon. The EU also has mandates for increasing consumption of ethanol and biodiesel, a diesel-like fuel made from vegetable oils. Even some developing countries, such as Brazil, have laws on the books encouraging greater use and development of fuels produced from agricultural commodities.

Primary holdings in PAGG include genetically modified (GM) seed producer Monsanto (NYSE: MON). The company makes GM seeds designed to exhibit certain favorable characteristics known as traits. Traits include crops resistant to pests or disease; in the future, Monsanto plans to introduce crops than can withstand drought or other adverse environmental conditions. Monsanto's seeds offer farmers higher yields -- they can produce more crops per acre farmed.

Other major holdings include fertilizer producers Potash Corporation (NYSE: POT) and Mosaic (NYSE: MOS). One way to increase crop production is to fertilize more heavily. Farmers in developing markets such as Brazil and China have traditionally applied less fertilizer to their crops than in developed markets. But higher agricultural prices are improving farmers' incomes and allowing them to pay up for fertilizer to boost yields. As farmers in developing countries ramp up their fertilizer use more in line with the developed world, it implies an explosion in demand for potash and other key fertilizers.

Rising global demand for agricultural commodities should continue to benefit agriculture-focused stocks such as those in PAGG.