Forget unemployment. Inflation. Consumer confidence. Personal Incomes…

You can even ignore the ever-popular gross domestic product (GDP).

Most of the indicators that the market relies on to forecast the future are worthless in this type of environment. The truth is the data coming out of the traditional economic indicators isn’t current. By the time it’s being reported, the information is already weeks or even months old.

If you want to know when the global slowdown that’s erased $28 trillion in wealth (so far) will finally reverse course, pay attention to the obscure Baltic Dry Index. And nothing else. Here’s why…

What Is The Baltic Dry Index?

Despite the name, the Baltic Dry Index has nothing to do with markets in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. Instead,…

I’m no stranger to controversial stock market predictions. In fact, a few weeks ago I angered an entire room of investors at the Agora Financial Symposium with my latest trio of “crazy” recommendations…

• “Take profits on your gold, while the getting’s good.”
  Since uttering those words, the yellow metal’s dropped $108, or roughly 12%.
• “Get short oil. It’s going to $100 before it touches $150.”
  And oil obliged by dropping to $113, a move that silenced everyone who was calling for $200 oil just weeks ago.

If you think subprime was bad, wait until “prime” hits. The whole mortgage market mess is going to get much, much worse, according to a report in The New York Times.

The paper reports today that although the first wave of subprime mortgage defaults is peaking, a second and far more damaging wave of defaults in building - this time in the alt-A and prime mortgage brackets.

Alt-A mortgages in arrears quadrupled to 12 percent in April from a year earlier. And delinquencies among prime loans, which account for most of the $12 trillion market, doubled to 2.7 percent over the same period.

Takeover Trader editor Louis Basenese has found a stock market indicator that he says is as close to a sure thing as you can get.

Heavy volumes of options trading - particularly when biased to one side - gives a clear signal that a stock is about to make a big movement.

And Louis says Friday’s huge trade in short-term call options for EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) suggests its share price is about to rally big time. Louis says it’s time to long on this stock now…

US foreclosure filings have more than doubled in 2Q from a year ago, reports Bloomberg.

According to RealtyTrac, 1 in every 171 households was foreclosed on, received a default notice or was warned of a pending auction in the quarter. That’s up a massive 121 percent from a year earlier - and 14 percent just from 1Q.

The housing housing market has yet to bottomed out, says Louis Basenese. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider a play in real estate.

Real estate is in a black hole, says Louis Basenese. The five largest U.S homebuilders lost $3.4 billion in the latest quarter. Home-builder sentiment is at a 22-year low. Investors are salivating over the prospect of a bottom in the real estate market. But Loius says it’s best to wait. A clear-cut signal that the housing market has bottomed isn’t coming…