Table of Contents

1.  Market Outlook
2.  FTI Consulting (FCN)
3.  UltraShort Emerging Markets (EEV)
4.  Additional Investing Ideas
5.  Investor Trivia -- Online Retail
6.  Featured Topic -- Profit from Tax-Loss Selling
7.  Free Investing Resources

Today's Top Stock Picks

FTI Consulting (FCN): Benefiting from the Subprime Mortgage Fiasco
Even as the market sold off in the past few weeks, this forensic accounting company stayed strong. Read More. . .

If the Emerging Markets Cool, You'll Want Shares of this New ETF
We all know emerging markets have been hot. But if you think a slowing U.S. economy will temper future growth abroad, this is the ETF for you.  Read More. . .

Market Outlook

November has not been a kind month to investors. In total, the Dow tumbled more than 1,100 points between Halloween and Thanksgiving. This past Monday, the market picked up right where it left off before the holiday, as the Dow surrendered another 240 points and closed below 12,750.

For those keeping score, that marked a -10% pullback from the index's mid-October peak of 14,300, the technical definition of a market "correction." Remarkably, the last correction in the Dow occurred on March 12, 2003 -- a span of 1,154 trading days. Over the past 100 years, that is the second-longest stretch ever recorded, trailing only a 1,724 day bull run from March 1990 to October 1997.

Even more incredibly, this short-lived correction lasted just one day, as the market has since come roaring back to life. In fact, the Dow recouped nearly 550 points on Tuesday and Wednesday -- its sharpest two-day advance in more than five years. Meanwhile, the S&P 500, which had briefly sunk into negative territory for the year, rebounded even more on a percentage basis.

There were several factors that helped the market snap back this week: a pullback in oil prices, some easing of credit-related tensions, and record "Cyber Monday" online retail sales of $733 million -- a healthy +21% increase over last year. More importantly though, there is renewed optimism that the Fed's next policy meeting on December 11th will result in another rate cut.

All of this has left traders in a bullish mood, allowing the major averages to stage an impressive recovery and end the week with gains of between +2.5% and +3.0%.

Looking ahead, it's a safe bet that investors will be keeping a close eye on the latest employment figures and other key data releases scheduled for this week for clues about the future direction of the economy and interest rates. However, regardless of which way the economic winds blow, there is one company with plenty to keep it busy over the next few months -- FTI Consulting (NYSE: FCN, $57.00). Below, Cabot Wealth Advisory editor Timothy Lutts explains why demand is booming for this firm's specialized consulting expertise.

Also in today's TopStockAnalysts Digest, I have just the solution for investors that believe emerging market stocks have gotten ahead of themselves and are banking on a pullback. As you will read below, the UltraShort MSCI Emerging Markets ProShares ETF (AMEX: EEV, $73.63) doesn't just jump when emerging market stocks fall -- it leaps.

Good Investing!

-- Nathan Slaughter
Co-Editor
TopStockAnalysts Digest

Ideally, you want to invest in industries where the dominant factors are positive and where booming demand for products or services means revenue growth is rapid and profit margins are high. Trouble is, in the current market climate, the best growth stocks, which have enjoyed great advances earlier this year, are in retreat. Buying them is a high-risk proposition.

But there is one exception, and it's interesting enough to discuss here.

It's FTI Consulting (NYSE: FCN, $57.00), and it excels in helping businesses pick up the pieces after they've been hit by devastating events.

Originally, the company's name was Forensic Technology Inc., which gave a clear indication of the company's expertise, and to tell the truth, I liked that name better. But the company has grown its sphere of expertise over the years, and the old name was rather limiting. So the name has been reduced to initials, which, of course, don't match its ticker symbol.

In any event, FTI today provides a wide variety of expert services to assist companies with litigation, corporate finance, restructuring, media relations, and mergers and acquisitions.

Historically, the company has been an important player in a number of high-profile corporate events.

For example, it was instrumental in the AT&T/BellSouth merger, presenting its findings to the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission, and a variety of state regulatory commissions. Its forensic accountants and forensic computer consultants analyzed Refco's money trails to tell the board where the money went. It used over 40 employees over an eight-month period to analyze and evaluate over 150 million Freddie Mac documents. It assisted TYCO in responding to the SEC's request for documents. And it was instrumental in the restructuring of American Home Mortgage, Calpine, Dana, Delphi, Northwest Airlines, Tower Automotive, and Winn Dixie.

Today, FTI has clients in a wide variety of industries, including automotive, chemical, communications, construction, energy, financial services, healthcare, insurance, pharmaceutical, real estate, and retail.

And business is booming. In the third quarter, revenues grew +56% to $253 million, while earnings jumped +46% to $0.60 per share. The profit margin for the quarter was 10.8%. Following the report, analysts adjusted their estimates of future earnings upward.

And with good reason! All you've got to do is look at all the failures in the mortgage industry and the related credit-dependent industries to conclude there's a lot of forensic work to be done and that FTI will be one of the major beneficiaries of this trend.

Since the third-quarter report was issued, the stock has climbed from $53 per share to a high of around $61, totally ignoring the broader markets' weakness. Since then it has pulled back just slightly, trading around $57 per share.

As the name implies, UltraShort MSCI Emerging Markets ProShares (AMEX: EEV, $73.50) offers investors an easy way to short, or bet against, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

Specifically, the fund is designed to provide approximately double the inverse of the daily return of the MSCI EM Index. For example, on a day when the underlying benchmark drops -2%, EEV shareholders can reasonably expect to see gains (before fees and expenses) of +4%.

The math doesn't always work out to the penny over the long-haul, but the premise is simple enough: bad news for emerging market stocks is great news for this fund, and vice-versa.

ProShares offers a growing assortment of funds geared to move in the opposite direction of an underlying basket of stocks -- whether it's a broad index like the Russell 2000 or even a specific industry group such as financial services. Think that small-caps will bear the brunt of a recession-driven pullback? Convinced that there is more misery ahead for the banking sector? Then these funds would be the way to go.

Of course, in the case of emerging market stocks, an inverse fund (particularly a leveraged one that magnifies returns) would have been the last place you wanted to invest -- at least until recently. Investors have pumped $13.5 billion into emerging market ETFs so far this year, and it's easy to see why: the benchmark MSCI EM Index has delivered red-hot annual gains of +34% over the past three years.

However, emerging market equities are also notoriously volatile and will likely be one of the harder-hit areas in the event of a global sell-off. To give you a glimpse of that, when the market tumbled on November 21st, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Fund (AMEX: EEM) suffered a steep -5% decline, while EEV soared around +9%.

For those that think the emerging markets are overheated and prone to even deeper declines, then this fund is for you.

Our View -->  ProShares launched this fund (and a non-leveraged version -- Short MSCI Emerging Markets ProShares (AMEX: EUM)) in early November and has since followed up with a fund that takes a similar approach in China (where stocks have soared +600% over the past five years).

Over the long-haul, we think the emerging markets story is one worth telling, but investors should expect a few plot turns along the way. Still, we don't engage in day-to-day market timing and won't attempt to speculate on what emerging markets will do over the next few weeks.

However, we do believe that this fund could be a useful hedging tool for investors with considerable exposure to these stocks. For those that want to protect profits without closing out their positions (and triggering hefty capital gains taxes), then EEV may be the answer.

Also, for anyone interested in shorting other indices or sectors, we should point out that Rydex is busy launching a wave of inverse funds with expense ratios of 0.70% -- versus 0.95% for ProShares.