If you have never experienced a market crash before, welcome to the club. At this stage of the game, you can forget about all economic data. Just throw it away. For the next few months (3-6) you can expect; lower inflation, higher unemployment, less consumer spending, lower home prices, and tighter credit standards by banks.

As the credit markets remain in turmoil, I believe owning stock in some of the biggest blue chip names are actually safer than cash. In my opinion, most of the risk has been rung out of many blue chip names, and I would rather own Coca-Cola (KO) and Exxon-Mobil (XOM) than a large cash hoard in a money market account.

Last week many hedge funds imploded, and energy stocks sold off to levels that reflect an oil price of $40-$50/bbl. As this happened, I few thoughts crossed my mind. The first one may shock you.

1) Was the energy crisis for real, or a giant hoax?

This is a legitimate question. I have addressed this question in prior articles (September 4, 2008- Political Conventions- Lies, Failed Promises, and Same Old Tactics.).

In the past, every energy crisis since the early 1970's had a strange way of disappearing over time. In order to understand what is going to happen in the future, we need to understand what has happen in the past.

Don't you find it odd that with every crisis, and every mania, the the media and Wall Street wanted us to believe "it is different this time".

If the current energy crisis magically corrects itself as it has in the past, you will know that you have been screwed (again) by the aristocrats that control the supply, the price. With help from the media, they sold consumers on the idea that there is an energy crisis.

We have seen this act before. And as the idea of an energy crisis took hold, a mad dash toward alternatives took center stage.

Oh, and what will happen to all those wonderful alternative energy ideas?

During the oil crisis in 1980, Exxon spent $5 billion on the Colony Oil Shale Project in Colorado. Two years later, oil prices declined, and May 2, 1982 became known as "Black Sunday" when Exxon abandoned the project, laid off 2,000 workers, and left behind a trail of foreclosures and empty oil shale mines.

During the Carter years, solar panels were placed on the roof of the White House. When Ronald Reagan took office, he said, take that crap off my roof.

2) Are oil prices dropping because of slowing demand, or the signaling of a political shift in Washington?

Many years ago, a wise investor told me to buy oil and defense stocks when a Republican is in the White House. If a Democrat is in the White House, buy technology stocks, sell oil and defense stocks, and watch your wallet.

So, was the energy crisis a giant hoax? We will see over the next year or two.

I don't expect oil prices to decline much from current levels. In fact, I am expecting a rebound as the Feds massive bailout program adds to the nations debt, and in turn puts pressure on the U.S. dollar. Once the stock market and the economy stabilizes, oil prices and oil stocks will rebound.

Already, some parts of the nation are experiencing early snowfalls, and as winter approaches demand for heating oil and energy will cause prices to rise. OPEC will hold an emergency meeting in November, and you can bet production cuts will be implemented if prices remain at current levels.

At very least, I think we'll have a good trading opportunity in oil.

Our Current Crisis- The Stock Market

There is no deigning it, the current credit crisis is serious . But once again, Wall Street, with help from their favorite conduit, the media, have conjured up a fear campaign that would scare the heck out of even the most sophisticated investor. The word they are using to scare you is... "Depression".

I don't care what media source you use, you have heard that the current financial crisis has all the earmarks of another "Great Depression".

Today I read where sales of large home safes were up over 50% the past three weeks. Consumers were pulling money out of banks and storing cash in the safes at home.

All this panic and fearing gripping the nation may be signaling an important bottom in the stock market, and eventually the economy.

Spotting a market top or bottom is not always easy. Investors always let their emotions control their actions. They get caught up in euphoria's, hype's, and hysteria's of the moment. We saw this with the NASDAQ in 1999, and with Real Estate in 2004.

Unless I am way off base, I think you will see some very powerful forces entering the stock and credit markets over the next few weeks, and once again we will see that the emotions of investors led them down the wrong path.

History has shown that the best time to buy stocks is when it is most people are scared. After several days of heavy selling, and massive losses, the majority of investors are scared and discouraged. Now that investor greed has turned to despair, an important market bottom is somewhere near.

Here are our Top 10 ETF's for the week of October 13th:

1) DBA: Powershares DB Agriculture Fund
2) EWZ: Brazil Index
3) DBE: PowerShares DB Energy
4) FXF: Currency Shares Swiss Franc Trust
5) EEB: Claymore ETF BNY BRIC
6) DDM: Ultra Dow 30 Proshares ETF
7) KBE: KBW Bank ETF- Not Rated
8) IYF: iShares Dow Jones US Financial Sector
9) PGJ: PS Golden Dragon China Fund
10) SSO: ProShares Ultra S&P500 Trust

After the November elections and beyond, I am expecting our commodity and Oil holdings to rebound sharply.

Here are our Top 10 Fidelity Sector Funds for October 2008

1) FSCHX: Chemicals
2) FSMEX: Medical Equipment
3) FSCGX: Industrial Equipment
4) FCYIX: Industrials
5) FSPTX: Technology Portfolio
6) FSCSX: Computers & Software
7) FSCPX: Consumer Discretionary
8) FNARX: Natural Resources
9) FSRBX: Banking
10) FSVLX: Home Finance