This week Professor Jeremy Siegel (author of Stocks for the Long Run) had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal showing that stocks are now cheap. I was on Tech Ticker, and Henry Blodgett challenged me about my e-letter last week, where I talked about how expensive stocks are. So which is it? We look at Professor Siegel's work -- and I let you decide.

But first, and quickly, I just wanted to take a moment and remind you to sign up for the Richard Russell Tribute Dinner, all set for Saturday, April 4 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego -- if you haven't already. This is sure to be an extraordinary evening honoring a great friend and associate of mine, and yours as well. I do hope that you can join us for a night of memories, laughs, and good fun with fellow admirers and long-time readers of Richard's Dow Theory Letter.

A significant number of my fellow writers and publishers have committed to attend. It is going to be an investment-writer, Richard-reader, star-studded event. If you are a fellow writer, you should make plans to attend or send me a note that I can put in a tribute book we are preparing for Richard. And feel free to mention this event in your letter as well. We want to make this night a special event for Richard and his family of readers and friends. So, if you haven't, go ahead and log on to https://www.johnmauldin.com/russell-tribute.html and sign up today. I wouldn't want any of you to miss out on this tribute. I look forward to sharing the evening with all of you.

There are a lot of new readers to Thoughts from the Frontline, and let me welcome you. For those of you who are not already getting your copy directly, you can get it sent to your email inbox for free, simply by going to www.frontlinethoughts.com and typing in your email address.

This week we survey the economic landscape that the new president will inherit. It is a polite understatement to say that he will be getting a serious mess. In reality, the US goes to the polls this next Tuesday to elect a Janitor-in-Chief. He will face a task that rivals that of Hercules in cleaning out the Stygian stables (legendary huge stables that had not been mucked out for ten years). However, there are no convenient rivers at hand for a probable President Obama to redirect that will quickly be able to clean out the mess left in the stables of our economy. This will indeed be an Herculean task and one that will take most of the first term of the next administration. So, let's look at what will face the next president. It should make for an interesting, even if not optimistic, letter.

But first, a quick commercial. My friend Steve Blumenthal at CMG wanted me to remind you that there are money managers who have been able to create value in these markets. If you are wondering where to turn to in this rather difficult environment (to say the least!), I suggest you go to his website, register, and then let them show you what a blend of active managers that are on his platform would have done over the past few months and years. These are primarily managers who will trade a managed account (using various proprietary styles) in your name and are quite liquid. And if you are an advisor or broker and would like to see the managers on his platform and how you can access them for you clients, sign up and let Steve and his team know you are in the business. The link is http://www.cmgfunds.net/public/mauldin_questionnaire.asp.

CMG is the firm to which I refer investors who typically have a net worth of less than $2 million. If you are an accredited investor with a higher net worth and would like to see what a portfolio of alternative investments, including hedge funds and actively managed commodity funds, has done this year, I suggest you go to www.accreditedinvestor.ws and my partners at Altegris Investments in the US (and Absolute Return Partners in London and Europe) will be glad to talk with you. And if you are a registered investment advisor or broker in the US, you should seriously consider signing up and talking with the team at Altegris. Some of the solutions they have might be ideal for your clients. (In this regard, I am president and a registered representative of Millennium Wave Securities, LLC, member FINRA. Please note that past performance is not indicative of future results and pay special attention to all the risk disclosures at the websites and at the end of this letter.) And now to the letter.

This week I am in South Africa and am not as connected as I would like to be due to meetings and slow Internet, so we are going to look at some material from my book, Bull's Eye Investing, which I think is more pertinent than ever. And since lately there has been rather large growth in the readership, there are a significant number of new readers for whom this material will be fresh. When I originally wrote much of this, the markets were coming out of the bear phase of 2001-2. I am adding a few comments in [brackets]. I trust you will find value as we look at the problems that investors face in the struggle to maximize portfolio value.

Like all the children from Lake Wobegon, I am sure all my readers are above-average investors. But I am also sure you have friends who are not, so in this chapter we will look at the reasons why they fail at investing, and how they should analyze funds and determine risk. Hopefully this will give you some ways to help them. I will show you a simple way to put yourself in the top 20% of investors. This should make it easier to go to family reunions and listen to your brother-in-law's stories.

A big part of successful Bull's Eye Investing is simply avoiding the mistakes that the large majority of investors make. I can give you all the techniques, trading tips, fund recommendations, forecasts, and so on; but you must still keep away from the patterns which are typical of failed investors.

Last week we talked briefly about some of the problems surrounding Social Security, and especially the possibility that the deficit problems may be worse than we thought because of the trend towards (on average) living longer.

But a large part of the current debate misses what I think should be the real point, and that point is the focus of this week's letter. Everyone assumes that if they work hard and save they will be able to retire. While a sad number of people do not plan for retirement, those who do make assumptions about what type of retirement they will be able to afford with their savings, pensions and Social Security based upon historical performance of the markets.

This week, I am going to depart from the regular format, as my book, "Bull's Eye Investing: Targeting Real Returns in a Smoke and Mirrors Market" is in the trucks on the way to a bookstore near you, as well as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com. I have arranged for a nice 30% discount on the book for you courtesy of Barnes and Noble.com, a different and excellent source for bulk orders and I launch a special letter just for readers of my book.

Today we return to our assigned task of trying to find some patterns in the data to help us determine the direction of the economy and the markets. There are lots of bread crumbs on this trail, so let's see what conclusions they lead us to.

First, the evidence mounts that we are still in what I call the Muddle Through Economy - a slow growth, no-new-jobs type of recovery that seems to be alternately teasing us with potential for growth and frustrating us with weakness. Weakness is winning.

Today, we will look at a company that will pay you 8.7% a year because you are getting older. Yes, my Maine Source for value investing has come up with a gem for this month's value stock.