From the tidal wave of e-mails and comments I have received from numerous different sources I am under the impression that most investors view the recent rally in the world’s stock markets as a bear market rally. I suppose we would need to define a bear market rally as a rally that fails to make a new all-time high (for the S&P 500, above the 1576 reached in October 2007) and is also followed by a new low for this cycle (below 666 for the S&P 500 reached in early March 2009).

Long-short investing strategies aren’t just for hedge funds anymore. Many investors believed diversified “long-only” portfolios would always serve them well, regardless of the market conditions. They expected certain asset classes would perform well even as others were struggling.

Gold steadied on Monday after falling 3 percent last week, supported by scepticism about an economic recovery, but the dollar remained a downside risk.

Naturally, most investors are hoping that the current stock market rally will hold and we’ll embark on another bull run. But what if it doesn’t?

Dr. Scott Brown of Investment U says. “It seems we’ve been talking about bottoms and whether we reached it yet for quite some time.”

It’s hard to look at Peter Schiff with anything other than awe.

The year ahead is showing an alarming investment slowdown for the emerging-markets investor. Money Morning’s Martin Hutchinson presents which Emerging Markets ETFs the pros are buying. These picks have sound savings and are worth looking at.

Gold was little changed in Europe on Monday, consolidating after last week’s more than 3 percent rise, with strong demand for physical investment products such as gold-backed exchange-traded funds supporting prices.

Now that China has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s biggest car market, investors should be asking themselves if China is simply a better place to put their money.

Capital flows to emerging markets are likely to plunge this year. And countries with low domestic savings or wide external deficits will suffer badly. Martin Hutchinson picks the five best emerging market etfs to hold in 2009.