The Smart Investor's List: A Dozen Things You Need to Know to Watch Your Flank

We're back to the "fundamentals don't matter anymore" phase of the market. That's when, more than ever, you need to remember how deliberately some companies try to make their financial performance look better than it really is. (Yep, Martha, there he -- meaning me -- goes again!)

So when my colleague Jesse Eisinger sent around an email to TheStreet.com staff that had been collecting dust on his hard drive, my first reaction was, What a column! It was written by a former brokerage analyst (with several very well-known firms), and it was a list of his favorite red flags. I called the author, and he gave me permission to reprint it. ...