Normally, I try to avoid overall market prediction. I think it's a waste of time. But just as my Scooby sense told me
that Solarfun (NASDAQ: SOLF) looked ripe for a fall yesterday -- even as the stock was breaking out to new highs on news of yet another contract -- I'm feeling pretty bearish on the overall stock market for 2008.

I won't bet on it because a.) I don't have the patience and b.) I'm a momentum stock trader, what do I know about the macro picture? But that's the beauty of blogging; it's all about the sharing of ideas. And since, even with all my mistakes, my cumulative nine-year investment return is 4,832% (a little better than most, as detailed in my book), I know a little something about nearly everything stock market related and maybe I might be able to make/save you a buck or two. So, here we go, please comment as I'd like to get your opinion too!

Sure, today's jobs report is tanking the market and bringing up recession talk, but this is just a blip in the grand scheme of things. For the past few weeks/months, the stock market has been heading lower and there are tons of articles talking about how 2008 is going be another tough year for the stock market. (As if a 10% year for the Nasdaq is "a tough year" LOL, you spoiled, spoiled people, you ain't seen nothin' yet!)

The positives: The dollar keeps weakening, making our products cheap and popular overseas, energy and mineral stocks like Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM) and Haliburton (NYSE: HAL) are rocking; cutting edge companies with cutting edge products like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) will surely keep innovating and profiting; stocks are still somewhat cheap historically and inflation remains low.

The negatives: Consumer debt keeps surging (rising oil prices don't help); housing could/should collapse (sorry, way too much greed/leverage/uncertainty/lying to give it the benefit of the doubt); financials like Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) are a mess as are retailers like Circuit City (NYSE: CC) and Bed Bath and Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY); China's stock market, along with that of many other third world countries will probably crash sometime this year and we've had a four-year bull run (that's like 100 years old in bull market years), and most importantly for me, the charts of all the major indexes look like they're about to roll over.

Since there seems to be more negatives than positives, and none of the problems have any quick fixes, what do investors have to look forward to this year? And we're only in January – habitually the most optimistic month of the year, smack in the middle of historically best performing time of the year! Sure, sure, it hasn't paid to be a bear, but sometimes, you just have to sit back and say, wait a minute, since people are naturally optimistic, they usually don't see the danger/downside potential/risks until it's too late.

Consider this your warning.

Timothy Sykes writes the blog timothysykes.com, is a former hedge fund manager, the star of the TV show Wall Street Warriors and author of the book, An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund