You Can Pick Stocks in a Recession

This column was originally published on RealMoney on March 21 at 11:45 a.m. EST. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers.

No matter how dire it is, there's always hope -- and this is particularly true of the stock market. But it takes the right approach. Even if the economy is in a recession, stock-pickers can succeed. You just have to know what to look for.

If you are raising a family, thinking about paying for a college education or two, putting money in the stock market or considering buying a house, you can't help but be worried about the signs of an impending recession. Many economists are saying the U.S. is sitting on an economic house of cards, ready to collapse at any moment. Among the clearer signals of a recession, they say, are:

The inverted yield curve. The past 10 out of 11 recessions (or some other random statistic like this, I forget the exact number) have occurred after an inverted yield curve. I can go through the arguments of why this statistic might be meaningless and why the inverted yield curve might be different this time, but suffice to say, in the privacy of my office, with only tears to comfort me, I'm as scared as the next guy. ...