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"Energy Transfer Equity (NYSE: ETE), a major player in the midstream energy sector, is a cash-producing machine," says value investor Nathan Slaughter.

The editor of Half-Priced Stocks explains, "Even more promising, those who know the company best -- the CEO and one of its co-funders -- have been voting with their wallets lately." here's his review of the income holding.

"The company -- a master limited partnership (MLP) -- owns over 17,000 miles of natural gas pipelines in several states, including the largest network serving the prolific gas basins of Texas.

MLPs come in two classes: general partner and limited partner. The general partner (GP) typically handles all of the day-to-day operations and in return gets a cut of the distributions that are dished out to the limited partners (LP).

"In this case, the General Partner is Energy Transfer Equity, our recommendation, which should not be confused with the Liimted Partner -- Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP).

"Energy Transfer Equity owns all the General Partner interests -- as well as 62.5 million LP units (46%) of ETP. All of which is a convoluted way of saying that ETE unitholders can expect to be showered with cash.

When the Bureau of Economic Research declared that the recession had officially begun in December 2007, the entire retail sector shrugged its shoulders and said, "No kidding."

Shares of companies that deal directly with the consumer, except for the deep discount retailers, have known for some time that the economy was struggling. Sales have been declining steadily and, with the deteriorating operating environment, shares of the retail stocks have been absolutely crushed.

The entire retail group is one of the biggest losers in the market this year, with some stocks down 80% to 90%.

That said, those retailers that offer big discounts, including Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Big Lots (NYSE: BIG), are doing much better on a relative basis.

I am the Global Editor at MoneyShow.com and each week I interview an investing expert. This week, I spoke with John Rutledge, chairman of Greenwich, Conneticuit-based Rutledge Capital, who casts a wide net, shedding light on the global recession as well as upcoming opportunities around the world.

Q. John, are we at the bottom yet (in equity markets) and what do you see for world markets in the next 12 months?

A. The US economy has substantially worsened in recent months; and the US and global economies are now in the early stages of a significant recession.

In early 2007, the problem was confined to the leveraged loan market as banks revealed their $300 billion in toxic loan commitments to US private equity deals. This was an isolated capital market problem, which had not materially impacted GDP. But in September 2008, the safety of money market funds came into question, seriously frightening individuals into taking cash from their bank accounts, putting all spending on hold and hoarding cash. Since then, GDP has been in serious decline.

Ironically, beginning in March 2008, the Federal Reserve's series of liquidity measures, designed to provide cash to troubled Wall Street institutions, made this situation worse. They sold Treasury bills simultaneously, withdrawing reserves from the banking system, resulting in less than a 1% annual rate of growth in bank reserves and the monetary base in the 12 months leading up to September 2008. Since the September crisis, both reserves and the monetary base have more than doubled, which will eventually solve the problem. But the Fed was very late to the party.

The objective of a bear market is to completely break the will of investors. The mission is accomplished when all hope is lost.

In our current state we are quite close to seeing the will of the investor being completely wiped out.

The flip side of that hopelessness is the power of surprise.

If the market is expecting the worst, even the smallest blip of good news can trigger a sharp rally. That can be the case with stocks as a group or individual stories.

Last week, I released my Top 10 Stocks for 2009. In putting together the list I wanted to include stocks that were priced for the worst and yet offered the opportunity to surprise.

In that way, I hope to generate a return for the year that will significantly out perform the market.

On the list was General Electric (NYSE: GE). The huge industrial conglomerate has been completely pummeled. The stock has been in the tank for some time, culminating with a steep drop during the past two months.

Telecommunications giant AT&T will cut 12,000 jobs to reduce expenses amid slowing business conditions, due to the U.S. recession, the company announced Thursday.

The cuts amount to a 4% workforce reduction, and the company also said it will take a company-record $600 million charge in Q4 for severance expenses.

Shares of AT&T (NYSE: T) Wednesday closed up $1.04 to $29.08.

AT&T added that it also plans to cut spending in 2009, and will announce details of those cuts in January 2009, when it releases Q4 earnings results.

However, AT&T said it will continue to add jobs in its wireless, video, and broadband units.

Economist Richard Felson said the U.S. recession will hurt household formation, resulting in a likely decrease in AT&T's landline phone subscribers. Cell phone revenue will be affected as well, he said, but the revenue losses in this category will likely be limited to subscribers choosing cheaper mobile phone service packages and mobile phones.

Lately it's been very difficult for investors to get their bearings, but I can tell you that the winners in this game will be companies with little or no debt. Forget what stock values are doing now and focus on the future. You can take it to the bank that stocks gaining in value will have started from a very solid balance sheet foundation.

That said, I want to talk about Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO).

Yesterday the company was in the news again with reports that former AOL chief Jon Miller is seeking capital to purchase YHOO outright for a price that is reported to be in the $20 range.

YHOO shares rocketed higher on the news, immediately jumping up by nearly $1 per share, or approximately 10%.

My initial reaction, as you might expect, was skeptical. Jump on this news as a chance to dump shares. Management at YHOO, with or without Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang, has destroyed shareholder value so much that it would be hard to believe that anyone would pay a premium for the stock.

How could it be that a lone ranger from the failed AOL model be considered a serious alternative to YHOO going it alone? It makes no sense until you take a closer look at YHOO fundamentals. There the story starts to get a little more interesting.

This has been a terrible year for financial institutions. However, Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) has been able to make it through the obstacle course better than most.

The stock has been up and down with the market but the scandals and large write-downs that have tanked other companies have not been a part of the Wells story.

What has me wondering about Wells today is the prospectus I received from the company to purchase shares at $27 each. The offer is for 407,500,000 shares, far more than I could swallow at a cost in excess of $11 billion -- I have never seen that kind of money!

I'm sure they just figured I might take at least a few shares off their hands, and I have in the open market. If memory serves me correctly, this offering was announced about six weeks ago. The strange thing is that this came to me on a day when the stock closed at a price of $21 and change. Who pays $27 for a $21 stock?

Jack Adamo has been a bull on U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) and is now recommending doubling the position that he holds in his model portfolio. Here's the latest from his Insiders Plus newsletter.

"US Bancorp is accepting $6.6 billion in new capital from the TARP program. Tier One capital will rise from 8.5% to 11.4% as a result of the new deal.

"The company will issue preferred stock to the U.S. Treasury at an annual rate of 5% for five years, increasing to 9% per year thereafter if the company has not redeemed the shares. I doubt they'll go unredeemed.

"The Treasury Department would also receive 10-year warrants entitling it to buy common stock of U.S. Bancorp with a value equal to 15% of the amount of the preferred stock issuance.

"With Tier One capital already at 8.5%, USB obviously didn't need the Fed infusion. It said it saw it as a good opportunity to get cheap capital with which to take advantage of any acquisition opportunities. I agree with that.

"Those terms are very good. Compare them to the arm-twisting terms some companies have paid, e.g., the 10%, plus warrants, that Buffett charged GE. Incidentally, Buffett added 3 million shares of USB to his holding in Q3.

"I said about 18 months ago, before the market carnage started, that U.S. Bancorp was the single stock that I felt most comfortable with. That hasn't changed.

"With a dividend of 6.5%, a great balance sheet, and opportunities to take business from weaker banks in the years ahead, this is a truly safe place to put money for solid total returns for years to come."

Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers a daily look at the latest market commentary and favorite stock picks and investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

Banking analyst Meredith Whitney is credited with questioning assets on bank balance sheets given the collapse in the real estate market.

Taking advantage of a complete lack of information, Ms. Whitney triggered a massive collapse of trust in an industry by claiming that mortgage-backed securities were worth far less than what the market had perceived.

While she may have had a basis for her claims, her assessment was more sensational than factual. Mortgage-backed securities are quite complex instruments whereby loans are sliced, diced and packaged for sale to a global market.

With maturities extending 30 years into the future, it is unreasonable and unfair to assume that paybacks, even with high default rates will amount to what is currently priced into the market.

The lack of understanding of the underlying security or loans at the individual level has created uncertainty that has yet to be resolved.

For fans of the original "Star Wars" movie, think of the weakness in terms of attacking the Death Star. That one hole was exploited (we can debate the merits of doing so later) by Ms. Whitney and those like her.

Over the long holiday weekend, I had a chance to do some much needed reading. Given my vocation, sometimes I like to read articles that have little to do with the markets or finance as a way of recharging my batteries.

Of course, even when I partake in this guilty pleasure, there really is no way to truly escape. Somehow every story has a link or relationship to investing that I can utilize in my stock-picking mission.

This weekend, it was an article critical of a Shape magazine cover featuring a bikini-clad Faith Hill that has import for individual investors. In this particular article, the author does a really great job of highlighting the battle of fitness versus self-image.

How exactly did the 41-year-old country singer get that body? Was it photoshopped? How about plastic surgery? Is it really fair to present her in that way without the caveats, if any? The image alone implies that this woman, a busy professional with young children, managed to eat right and exercise in a way that created the image you now see on the magazine -- and that you can achieve yourself.

Wow, what pressure. The problem, of course, is that Photoshop was probably used in this instance, and if not Photoshop, then plastic surgery for certain.

So what does this have to do with investing?

This morning I awoke to the news that Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) announced a definitive agreement to purchase Mentor (NYSE: MNT), a leading supplier of medical products for the global aesthetic market -- namely, breast implants.

JNJ is paying $31 per share, or $1.07 billion in cash, for the company. The purchase price is about double what MNT fetched in the open market on Friday.

A premium price of that magnitude in this market environment is hard to believe, but I would not bet against JNJ here. They have their pulse on the market and a copy of Shape magazine on their desk. As the baby-boomer generation ages, plastic surgery looks to be a huge market. Fueled by images like those in Shape magazine, the market is more than worthy of a premium price.

The fact that MNT was valued at the purchase price as recently as June is telling. Yes, the economy is in recession, but the desire to improve self image is alive and well.

This is a brilliant deal for JNJ. The company enters a strong market with great demographics at a time of economic weakness. Taking advantage of a strong balance sheet and rich cash flow, JNJ is a winner in this economy.

Self-image issues aside, I like this deal.

Jamie Dlugosch is a contributor to InvestorPlace.com.

There are few topics as popular on BloggingStocks as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), one of the original eight we focused on. In the past 52 weeks, the stock has fallen from a high of $202.96 to a recent low of $79.14 amid the greatest market turmoil in 80 years.

Everyone has finally agreed that we are in the midst of a severe recession, and Wall Street has punished Apple, the inventive high flying growth story, because of fears that a slowdown in consumer spending will stall its market expansion.

Black Fridays promise aside, the market is in a wait and see mode. In the meantime, after five consecutive trading days in the upward direction, Apples shares closed Friday in a shortened trading day at $92.67, down for the day but notably off its earlier lows.

A sixth up day was too much to hope for as the market is down, and Apple hit a Monday low of $89.00

So what now? Is the growth story over? I think that for those who have an interest in owning this stock, now is the time to buy. Given a P/E of 17 and a reported $27 in cash and no debt, could there be a better time? I think not.

"Agricultural commodities have been hurt in the recent turmoil," says growth stock expert Stephen Leeb. In The Complete Investor he looks at Mosaic (NYSE: MOS). a world leader in fertilizers.

"Mosaic has been decimated in price despite reporting record earnings. The company is the world's second-biggest producer of fertilizer components and the leading producer of potash.

"It's also the largest maker of processed phosphates, which gives it a lot of leverage to the rapidly growing markets of China and Brazil, and is an exclusive marketer of 1.2 million metric tons of nitrogen products.

"Since its high in June, the stock has lost three-fourths of its value and now trades at just 3 times next year's earnings. The sell-off came despite Mosaic's highest-ever earnings ($2.65 in the latest quarter vs. $0.69 a year earlier) and expanding gross margins (38.1% vs. 26%).

"The apparent reason was that those record earnings were slightly below some analyst estimates. Also, investors perhaps feared that farmers wouldn't be able to obtain credit to buy fertilizers.

"Once all the added liquidity puts these fears to rest, and given that the worldwide inventory of soybeans, corn, and wheat is forecasted to keep declining into 2009, we think demand for Mosaic's products will be strong.

"Long-term investors should use any temporary softness in fertilizer component prices as a great buying opportunity for Mosaic's shares."

Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers a daily look at the latest market commentary and favorite stock picks and investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

"Investors should keep a defensive posture," says Richard Moroney. However, the editor of the blue chip advisory service, Dow Theory Forecasts, see opportunity in two drug stocks that he has just added to his buy list.

"In general, we prefer to let the market's action signal that the point of maximum pessimism has passed before deploying our cash reserves. But we intend to remain engaged, looking for stocks capable of bucking the bearish trend.

"Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) produces biotechnology drugs that treat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple sclerosis. Per-share profits jumped 69% and operating cash flow surged 71% in the September quarter.

"Wall Street expects per-share-profit growth of 9% in 2009 and 7% in 2010, but good news on Biogen's most-promising drug could render those targets conservative.

"At 12 times estimated 2009 earnings, Biogen shares are the cheapest of the six largest U.S. biotech stocks. Biogen is being initiated as a Focus List Buy and a Long-Term Buy.

"AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) is being added to the Buy List. The British drugmaker offers an intriguing blend of value and growth potential. A study released this month showed that the company's cholesterol drug Crestor reduced the risk of various heart problems by 44%.

"The study could potentially expand Crestor's addressable market to include millions of new patients, though AstraZeneca is soft-pedaling the potential benefits. AstraZeneca, which earns a Quadrix Overall score of 94 and yields 4.5%, is being added to the Buy List."

Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers a daily look at the latest market commentary and favorite stock picks and investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says seasonality is finally working in our favor.

Here's a new one: I don't trust the futures, but this time on the downside. We could get giant cuts from Europe and the Brits this week and given that it is international trade that is weighing us down, I would think that the declines we all expect after that record-breaking advance last week will not be vicious and will be muted.

I think that we have to watch the Nasdaq again for tells. I'm sure that this time some people will say that gadgets didn't sink as low as we thought on Black Friday, which means a return to big glass screens -- Corning (NYSE: GLW) (Cramer's Take) and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) (Cramer's Take) -- and perhaps once again hopes for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take) and for Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) (Cramer's Take).

There is also a newfound expectation that with all the money the Fed is printing, if you get any sign that Europe is willing to play ball, you are going to see the world trade stocks moving back up.

"While many firms are struggling to survive, a lucky minority are built to weather the storm better," says growth stock specialist Karim Rahemtulla. In Xcelerated Profits Report, he eyes Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ: COST).

"Thanks to rising inflation and unemployment, coupled with a beaten-up economy, many retailers are braced for a harsh new reality this holiday season.

"Consumers have much tighter budgets and are cutting back on whatever they can. And that's where some 'one-stop' retailers like Costco can really take advantage.

"Although customers are more likely to avoid the electronics and other non-necessity stocking sections of the store these days, they still need to eat.

"So while other non-food departments are seeing a sales slowdown, Goldman Sachs recently reported that Costco is likely to enjoy strong food sales, which offset that.

"Goldman also noted that Costco boasts a strong balance sheet, with almost $3.3 billion in cash on the books, plus ample liquidity - factors that could encourage management to implement a stock buyback program.

"Compared to other retailers who are flat-out dreading this holiday season, that puts Costco in a strong position.

"And because the store has such a diverse range of products, all under one roof and available at bargain prices, Costco is one firm better prepared to ride out what could be a brutal season for retailers."

Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers a daily look at the latest market commentary and favorite stock picks and investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.