THIS IS A GAME

that runs on new ideas. Every day I comb through hundreds of stocks, bonds, commodities and futures contracts looking for worthy investment ideas. Sometimes it's like shooting fish in a barrel; other times it's like casting a hook in the Dead Sea.

Numerous times over the years here at Tradecraft, I've stumbled upon stocks or assets I felt were ripe for a rise. On those occasions, I've not been shy about putting my money and reputation on the line by highlighting the names I believed were poised to move. From gold to bonds to utilities to foreign exchange, I've had success either buying names overlooked by the herd or getting out just as the stampede starts.

But when it comes to equities these days, I have to admit that not much is moving me. If you've been looking for smart, "actionable" ideas, there's been a dearth of them when it comes to going long the stock market. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq are down between 6% and 13% so far this year.

As a frequent contributor to the Fox Business Network, I often hear pundits argue why the "market is wrong" about the economy or a particular company. Of course, we don't trade the economy, or even the company, but pieces of paper influenced solely by supply and demand. My analysis is derived from analyzing the objective, factual reality that only comes through the perceptual observation of the market itself.

Of course, you don't have to be a Harvard MBA to see that there aren't too many stocks actually doing well right now. There's been no 1987-style crash or panicked 1,000-point collapse, but rather a persistent movement lower of prices in other words a trend.

There are many ways to make money, and no doubt there are legions of value investors now finding bargains in financials, retailers and leveraged loans, all of which have been decimated since summer. That sort of bottom fishing, however, has never been my bag. When a stock drops from $50 to $25, I'm not of the mind that says it's a great indicator it's headed up to $60 anytime soon.

When stocks are dropping, my instinct is to want to try and preserve long-held winning positions rather than add a slew of new ones. If I've got a winning and reasonably-sized position in Ampal-American Israel, for example, which is up about 20% since I wrote about it in June, I won't indiscriminately sell it simply because stocks in general are going through a weak patch.

, natural gas (, gold (, agriculture ( and even cattle are now bought and sold by individual investors just as easily as Microsoft. Although they've been strong, many commodity trades might still be more "March 1997" than "March 2000." If that sort of euphoria takes over again, $100 oil will seem cheap.

I'm constantly struck with how quickly things change in this game. In just two months, Apple has dropped 41%, while the price of the precious metal palladium has risen about the same amount. Palladium miner Stillwater is up about 100% since I highlighted it last fall.

On a more macro level, the fact that stocks are being tossed while investors embrace commodities is a marked shift from the investment attitudes that prevailed just a few years back. As late as 2002, gold investors were mocked as survivalist-types hoarding Krugerrands and canned goods in their backyard bomb shelters. Now securities like

StreetTracks Gold

PowerShares DB Commodity Index

PowerShares DB Precious Metals

Cisco

Sun Microsystems

Golden Globes

TheGlobe.com (TGLO) vs. Newmont Mining (NEM), since TGLO's November 1998 IPO.

Successful investors are those who can turn over their portfolios while keeping their discipline intact. Consider that nearly a decade ago TheGlobe.com went public at $9 and ended the first trading session at $63.50. The 606% jump set a record at the time for first-day IPO gains. All the while Newmont Mining was being dumped from investors' portfolios, falling from $60 a share in 1996 to under $20 in late 1998. Who needed boring old gold? The Internet was the future.

Folks, the future has arrived. And 10 years later, Newmont has gained well over triple digits while TheGlobe now trades for pennies literally two cents a share. It's an unmistakable reminder of how ephemeral "the long haul" can become in one short decade.

Jonathan Hoenig is managing member at Capitalistpig Hedge Fund LLC. At the time of writing, Hoenig's fund held positions in several of the securities mentioned.