“The crosscurrents must be defined. There are two of them: 1.) The fundamentals of the worldwide economy, and 2.) The fundamentals of the hedge fund industry. Both of them right now are frighteningly bad, and both are coalescing to drive lots of stocks down that should go down -- and they will go down faster than they should -- and lots of stocks that shouldn't go down, even if business is a little soft. So let's consider the case of Kimberly Clark (KMB), which was recommended today by Goldman Sachs. KMB yields 4%, historically high. What knocked it down to these levels? Higher commodity prices. What has happened to those commodity prices? They have collapsed. What has happened to the stock? It collapsed with the market, because it is part of the S&P 500, which is the index the hedge funds key off of and go long or short, depending upon their macro outlook. Given that the hedge funds are now weakened, as TrimTabs Investment Research reports $43 billion in withdrawals from hedge funds this September, and that's nowhere near how much is being pulled out in October, you are going to keep getting S&P 500 pressure. Remember, to raise capital to sell, they have to sell stocks. If they are long some stocks and don't want to sell them, they will sell S&P futures. If they are liquidating, the market will go down, too. They are also selling commodities that they might own, and that puts pressure on all of the stuff that goes into making diapers and tissues, KMB's bread and butter. Of course, in a worldwide slowdown, people might want to trade down from KMB's more expensive products, but in general, the tissue and diaper markets have been very steady through the years because of the necessity factor. So let's put it all together: The hedge funds are driving down all stocks because of redemptions. The economies of the world are slowing, and people are cutting out discretionary purchases but not cutting back on staples. The commodities that are needed to make KMB's products are coming down in price rapidly, much more rapidly than KMB has forecasted. So you get KMB lower than you should be able to buy it, with a great yield and decent growth, although not as strong as you would like, given the slowdown and the need for people to trade down. That means you will have excellent bottom-line growth, because margins are going to explode to the upside because of raw costs, but not so great top-line growth because of some slowing of purchasing and also some headwinds from a stronger dollar, as KMB has a lot of overseas business. That means you should be buying KMB. But it means that because of the vicious tug of the S&P 500, you can only buy it in increments of yield. So if you wanted to buy 200 shares, you would buy 50 right here, as it yields 4%, then 50 at $46 where it yields 5%, and another 50 at $40 and so on. Why that wide a scale? Because of the hedge fund selling, which is creating a great opportunity but not such a great opportunity that you can put it to work at one level. In other words, you have to use the hedge fund withdrawals to continue to allow you to buy a company at levels that will create enough yield that will allow you to hold it through this period. You can pick any higher-yielding stock to do this, but I want to urge you to do it with ones that have less economic sensitivity -- so the dividend is not in jeopardy -- and more commodity exposure, because those are going down. It's the only way to survive this period.”

From a recent Mad Money show: "The moment this stock starts yielding 5%, I'm a buyer. Until then, keep your powder dry."

From a recent Mad Money show: "Holy cow, they have just killed that stock. We are not going to recommend that company until it yields 5%."

From a recent Mad Money show: "I want to sell Dell. It's one of the lowest performers in tech and I don't want to be there."

From a recent Mad Money show: "This one is very earnings challenged. They build things and that's just a tough business during a recession."

From a recent Mad Money show: "No, no, we need that utility to yield more. We've got Duke Energy (DUK) earning 6%. That's the way to go."

From a recent Mad Money show: "I'm not sure I want anything to do with crude pipelines. The ones you want for natural gas pipelines are Kinder Morgan (KMP) and Enterprise Products Partners ."

From a recent Mad Money show: "I think this is a business model that needs a lot of capital to survive. I'm not going back there again."