After seven months of one of the strongest rallies in history, the stock market is showing signs of faltering. From here on out through the rest of 2009, I believe the advance will shift gears, and instead of recording new highs every month, the trend will tend to flatten.

And as we head into the heart of the fourth quarter, I wouldn't bet on the market making many more new highs this year.

The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) attempts to replicate as closely as possible the price and yield performance of the Amex Gold Miners Index.

GDX is in a bull market with both the long-term support line and the 200-day moving average at near $40. Although this is a volatile performer, bouncing 10 points between the high and low of its bull channel, the volatility gives us a second chance to buy this stock at a good price.

Analysts polled by Bloomberg recently gave their insights into gold's prospects for 2008 and they all seem pretty bulled up on the metal.

According to the same article, gold will rise to a record in 2008, increasing for an unprecedented eighth consecutive year, as investors seek protection from accelerating inflation.

Bloomberg reported that, "gold rose as record oil prices drove up inflation, and supplies from South Africa, the world's biggest producer, dropped to the lowest in 84 years." With the dollar dropping and losses attributed to the subprime fiasco, investors have piled into gold.

How to play gold in 2008? Outside of buying futures contracts, many investors use the streetTRACKS Gold ETF (NYSE: GLD) for this purpose. This ETF actually owns the metal and is used to track the performance of the price of gold bullion.

I also like to buy mining stocks because I believe that given a fixed cost structure for extracting gold, miners' stocks have more leverage than just buying the metal. There is even an ETF, called the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (AMEX: GDX), that lets investors invest in the sector (it also includes silver miners), rather than pick just one gold miner.

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. Author's clients may own GLD and may sell at any time.

An estimated 85% of financial success is being invested in the correct asset class, estimates Curtis Hesler, who is confident that the correct asset class for investors today is hard assets.

The editor of The Professional Timing Service uses several proprietary models to determine whether one should be in financial assets or real assets. One of these models is his Annual Asset Allocation Model.

He explains, "Its advice is simple as it will only point us in one of two directions -- financial (paper) assets or real (tangible) assets. The purpose of the model is to tell us which of these two assets offers the best potential reward for the lowest risk."

In recent months, the model has pointed toward real assets, suggesting that the risk of holding paper assets has been high. Hesler notes, "Although trading profits can be had in stocks, financial assets under these circumstances can turn very bad, very quickly -- as the recent market debacle illustrated."