Before you can invest in the stock market, you should know what you’re doing. A company cannot be traded on an stock exchange until it has gone public. When a company is public, it can issue shares of stock which can be bought and sold. Your goal is to purchase stock at one price and sell it for a higher price to make a profit.

Owning a share of stock means you own part of the company. The firm issues stock in order to raise money for their company to grow. If you own stock, you are a shareholder. As a shareholder, you are able to vote in the company and have some say. Although, usually you just vote on who you want to be on the board of directors, and they make decisions for the firm.

Stock is an equity investment because you own part of the company whereas a bond is a debt investment because you are lending the company money. When you buy a bond, you don’t own any part of the company. When a company wants to borrow money, they will sell bonds. You will earn a certain percentage on each bond you buy.

You can hold bonds to maturity or you can buy and sell them. Bonds bought from the government usually have little to no risk. Corporate and municipal bonds have a rating that will tell you how risky they are.

For example, an AAA bond has very little risk, but will usually not give you a very high return. A bond that is rated at BB or lower is considered a junk bond because it has high risk but potential for a very high return.

A mutual fund is a little bit of both. It is a mix of stocks and/or bonds. Mutual funds work by pooling your money together with other investors money and investing in a lot of different investments.

No-load mutual funds are mutual funds that charge no fees. These types of funds, and any mutual funds for that matter, are a popular choice among investors because you don’t have to do the investing yourself.

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Since World War II, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has soared 32% on average during the nine months following a bear market. But here’s the tricky part: Those gains often occur in sporadic, dramatic bursts. Which means that if you’re abstaining from investing, there’s a good chance you’ll miss the biggest gains. In most cases, it’s better to buy a bit early – and suffer some more paper losses – than to invest too late.

That’s a long way of saying that as much as you may be inclined to pull your money out of the market, dust off the passbook you used as a child, and transfer your few remaining dollars into a savings account, now is not the time to sit out.

No doubt, we’re mired in the grizzliest bear market in decades. But the good news is that stocks have been marked down to holiday-sale levels. The price/earnings ratio of the S&P 500 now stands at 11, or 50% below the index’s ten-year average. The S&P’s dividend yield is 3.4%, more than twice its ten-year average. There are now 62 S&P companies whose shares have P/E ratios below five and 52 with yields above 7%. One year ago those tallies would have been four and ten stocks, respectively. Says veteran mutual fund manager David Dreman: “This is the best buying opportunity since 1982.”

Yes, risk still lurks, and you should remember the warnings to be found throughout this year’s Investor’s Guide – most important, that stocks may still sink significantly before they rise and that, especially for some, the recovery may not occur until after 2009. But there are so many quality companies with strong growth prospects and sterling balance sheets that it should be possible to make big returns without taking outlandish chances.

One smart and easy way to get back into equities if you fled the markets in 2008 is with a low-cost S&P 500 index fund like Vanguard 500 Index (VFINX). That will give you broad exposure to the market, letting you enjoy the eventual comeback while minimizing the impact of any single company. But if individual stocks are your thing, keep reading. We crunched the numbers, combed through the research reports, interviewed our favorite investing pros, and came up with ten stocks we think are poised for strong returns in 2009 and beyond.

Nobody has ever accused the folks at Altria (MO, Fortune 500) and its Philip Morris USA subsidiary of being dummies. (A few other things, sure, but not that.) So when Altria endorsed legislation that would subject tobacco products to FDA regulation – a bill sponsored in the U.S. Senate by longtime tobacco company foe Ted Kennedy – you knew there had to be a reason.

There is. Indeed, the proposed legislation might as well be dubbed the Altria Earnings Protection Act. For starters, the bill prevents the FDA from ever banning cigarettes. Just as important, the wording makes it extremely unlikely that the FDA will ever approve a new cigarette product, because the new entrant would have to be deemed “appropriate for the protection of the public health.” The bill also restores states’ ability to restrict tobacco advertising. Yet another part of the measure would require the FDA to crack down on sales of counterfeit cigarettes, which have been a drain on Altria earnings for some time. All of these provisions would be beneficial to Altria, as they would help it “lock in its already dominant market share,” says Dan Clifton, a political analyst at Strategas Research Partners. (Altria currently controls about half the U.S. tobacco market.)

The upshot is this: If the bill becomes law – and there’s reason to think it will, since President-elect Obama was a co-sponsor – Altria’s already safe dividend (current yield: 8.5%) will become even safer. So, too, will its earnings growth, which analysts are pegging at 8% for 2009. Throw in the fact that vice stocks are usually recession stalwarts – they’ve outperformed the S&P by an average of 12 percentage points during the past six recessions, according to Merrill Lynch – and you’ve got a defensive stock with generous upside. “Given the current environment, both in terms of interest rates and overall uncertainty for almost every company in the market,” Citigroup tobacco analyst Adam Spielman writes of Altria, “we think this is worth seizing.”

No matter how superb its business or how cheap its valuation, a complicated stock – especially one that involves mortgages – can get hammered in a market like today’s. Annaly (NLY) and its 16% dividend yield (that’s not a misprint) is a prime example.

Annaly is a real estate investment trust, but it’s not a conventional one. The company is basically a hedge fund that uses short-term bank loans to make long-term investments in mortgage-backed securities. That may sound scary, but Annaly buys only mortgages guaranteed by government-sponsored (now government-controlled) enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Annaly does not acquire the toxic, unguaranteed stuff that’s been laying waste to bank balance sheets.

CEO Michael Farrell says the biggest question for Annaly shareholders has always been whether the federal government would stand behind Fannie and Freddie’s mortgage guarantees if the duo ran into trouble. “And now we know the answer,” says Farrell, referring to the government’s bailout of Fannie and Freddie in September.

If this story sounds familiar, it may be because Annaly is the sole holdover stock pick from our 2008 Investor’s Guide. What we said a year ago was that “there’s probably no company better positioned to profit from the ongoing mortgage crisis than this one.” And indeed, Annaly delivered a cool 84% earnings growth for the first three quarters of 2008.

Annaly makes its money off the net interest margin, or spread between the rate it pays on short-term loans and the yield it earns off its mortgage-backed securities. Federal Reserve rate cuts trimmed Annaly’s short-term borrowing costs, while the selloff in the mortgage market raised the yield of mortgage-backed securities it bought. The end result was a massive improvement in Annaly’s net interest margin, from 0.67% in September 2007 to 2.08% today.

Better still, the margin improvement allowed Annaly to ratchet down its risk: Its leverage ratio (the ratio of borrowed money to shareholder equity) now stands at seven to one, down from ten to one a year ago. That’s modest by Wall Street standards. Goldman Sachs’s leverage ratio is currently 17 to one, for example, and Goldman takes risks with its money that Annaly wouldn’t dream of taking.

As Friday’s abysmal jobs report made all too clear, Wall Street’s whirlwind holiday romance has ended. Investors are back to reality.

Stocks, as demonstrated by the S&P 500, rallied 8% in the last week of December and start of January. But in the first full week of 2009 trading on Wall Street, stocks erased half of those gains. A brutal jobs report, a rash of miserable retail-sales numbers, and profit warnings or job cut announcements from venerable firms such as Alcoa, Intel and Wal-Mart Stores were to blame.

The week ahead is likely to bring further testaments to the ongoing recession, specifically the weak consumer spending environment. Retail sales are expected to have dwindled in December, and reports on pricing pressures at both the consumer and wholesale levels are expected to show declines. With so many people out of work and cash-strapped, there’s little room for prices to move up.

Next week also brings the start of the quarterly reporting period, which begins with Dow component Alcoa, as is traditional. Intel and Merrill Lynch are the only other marquee names due to report next week, with the bulk of earnings releases due closer to the end of January. (For a preview of bank earnings due out later this month, click here.)

“The worst damage to the economy has probably already happened, but we’re going to keep seeing the messy aftermath in the months ahead,” said Larry Glazer, managing director at Mayflower Advisors.

Wall Street has almost gone through its own version of the stages of grief in regards to the recession, he said: “Earlier in 2008 there was a denial of what was happening, then panic set in during the fall, and now we are in a period of acceptance.”

Glazer belives that 2009 will be a year of investors trying to rebuild confidence in the market.

Monday: Alcoa (AA, Fortune 500) is expected to report a quarterly loss of 5 cents per share after the close Monday, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Reuters. The aluminum producer and Dow component earned 36 cents per share a year ago.

Tuesday: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks at the London School of Economics before the start of U.S. trading.

The House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on usage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds, a.k.a. the $700-billion bank bailout.

Wednesday: The nation’s chain stores released dismal December sales figures last week. This week, the Commerce Department releases the composite number, and it’s expected to be equally gloomy. Retail sales are expected to have fallen 1.1% after falling 1.8% in November. Sales, excluding volatile autos, are expected to have fallen 1.2% after falling 1.6% in November.

Also Wednesday, the government releases its November business inventories report. Inventories are expected to have fallen 0.5% after falling 0.6% in October.

And in the afternoon, the Federal Reserve releases its periodic “beige book” survey of the economy.

Thursday: While pricing pressure hasn’t been much of an issue at this point in the recession, investors will still keep an eye on the week’s inflation reports.

The Producer Price index (PPI), a measure of wholesale inflation, is expected to have fallen 1.9% in December after falling 2.2% in the previous month. Prices, excluding volatile food and energy costs, or the Core PPI, are expected to have risen 0.1% after rising 0.1% in November.

The Philadelphia Fed index, a regional manufacturing report, is also due Thursday. The January index is expected to have fallen to negative 35 from negative 32.9 in December.

Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) reports results before the start of trading and is expected to have lost 16 cents per share after losing $12.57 cents a year ago. Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) reports results after the close. The chipmaker is expected to have earned 10 cents per share after earningsof 38 cents per share a year ago.

Hearings on the nominations of various members of Obama’s cabinet are happening in Congress this week. On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee holds the confirmation hearing for Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary.

Friday: The December Consumer Price index (CPI), a measure of consumer inflation, is expected to have fallen 1% after falling 1.7% in November. Core CPI is expected to have risen 0.1% following a flat reading in November.

Later in the morning, the University of Michigan releases its preliminary consumer sentiment index for January. Sentiment is expected to have dipped fractionally to 60.0 from 60.1 in December

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 1.6%. The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index lost 2.1% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) fell 2.8%.

Stocks tumbled through the morning, briefly trimmed losses in the early afternoon and then tumbled anew in the last hour.

Employers cut 524,000 jobs from their payrolls in the last month of the year after cutting a revised 584,000 in the previous month. That brought 2008’s total job losses to nearly 2.6 million, the worst year for workers since 1945.

The 524,000 number was roughly in line with the 525,000 forecast by economists surveyed by Briefing.com. However, many on Wall Street had thought the number might be even higher, after a report earlier this week showed the private sector lost 693,000 jobs in December.

The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, rose to 7.2% from a revised 6.8% in November. Economists thought it would rise to 7%.

“There’s just nothing good in the report,” said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Financial Services Group.

“I guess the one positive, and the reason that the market isn’t down even more, is that although the payrolls number was basically in line with the consensus, there were rumors that the number would be a lot worse,” Stone said.

Stocks rallied through the end of an otherwise abysmal 2008 as investors bet that a new year and new administration will help turn the economy around. While that optimism hasn’t disappeared, it has been challenged by a series of poor corporate and economic reports recently.

In addition, President-elect Barack Obama’s roughly $775 billion stimulus package remains in flux as lawmakers struggle to agree on the best ways to revive the battered economy.

During the “Santa Claus” rally, investors poured money into equity mutual funds, adding to their investments for only the third week since July. In the week ended Wednesday, investors put $6.4 billion back into stock funds, fund tracker Trim Tabs reported. In the previous week, investors pulled $1.2 billion out of funds.

Next week brings the start of the quarterly earnings period, with Alcoa up first, due Monday after the close.

Stocks, as measured by the S&P 500, have bounced more than 20% off the November bear market lows. But the market selloff this week demonstrates that investors have not necessarily factored in all the bad news, as some experts had thought.

“When you no longer see stocks reacting violently to the adjustments in the economy, you’ll know that the market is really looking forward,” said Stephen Lauck, president and CEO at Ashfield Capital Partners.

He said investors will show they are looking forward when both poor economic and poor corporate news fail to rattle them. But they aren’t at that point yet.

“I am cautiously optimistic that five or six months from now, more people are going to wish they’d put money to work,” said Mark Travis, president and CEO at Intrepid Capital Partners. “I think people are closing the barn door after the cows have run out.”

Company news: Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said he’s stepping down from his role at Citigroup amid criticism of his performance at the bank.

Separately, Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) are in talks to merge their brokerage operations, sources told CNN.

Boeing said it is cutting 4,500 jobs, essentially undoing the employment gains it had made in 2008. The company had been one of the few big firms adding employees amid the recession.

No. 1 electronics firm Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) narrowed its fiscal 2009 profit forecast, saying it now expects earnings of $2.50 per share to $2.70 per share. That sets the midpoint below analysts’ current forecast for $2.61 per share. Shares of Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) lost 5%.

Circuit City said it is talking with two companies that could buy it outright or provide it with financing so it can stay afloat. The No. 2 electronics chain filed for bankruptcy protection in November.

Lennar (LEN, Fortune 500) shares plunged as much as 28% after a group accused the No. 2 homebuilder of operating certain joint ventures like a Ponzi scheme. However, shares recovered a bit after the company shot down the accusations.

Wall Street is particularly sensitive to fraud cases in the wake of the scandal involving Bernard Madoff, the financier accused of fleecing investors out of at least $50 billion.

India’s Satyam Computer Services has also been in the news. On Friday, police arrested Satyam’s former chief executive, who had retired earlier this week after admitting he had falsified accounting records for years.

Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers beat winners seven to three on volume of 1.16 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, decliners topped advancers by almost three to one on volume of 1.94 billion shares.

Bonds: Treasury prices fell, raising the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 2.49% from 2.44% Thursday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions. Yields on the 2-year, 10-year and 30-year Treasurys all hit record lows last month.

Lending rates improved. The 3-month Libor rate fell to 1.26% from 1.35% Thursday, according to Bloomberg.com. Overnight, Libor held steady at 0.10%. Libor is a key bank lending rate.

Other markets: In global trading, Asian markets ended lower and European markets were weaker at midday.

The dollar tumbled versus the yen and gained versus the euro.

U.S. light crude oil for February delivery fell 87 cents to settle at $40.83 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

COMEX gold for February delivery rose 50 cents to settle at $855 an ounce.

Gasoline prices rose 2 cents to a national average of $1.782 a gallon, according to a survey of credit-card swipes released Friday by motorist group AAA.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 245 points after losing as much as 295 points earlier. The decline was equivalent to a drop of 2.7%. The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index fell 3% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) slumped 3.2%.

“We had rallied about 24% off the November 20 lows, so we saw some profit taking today, triggered by the employment reports, the lower oil prices and anticipation about the retail sales reports due tomorrow,” said Chris Colarik, portfolio manager at Glenmede.

On Thursday, the nation’s chain stores will be reporting December sales figures and the results are expected to be pretty dismal.

Stocks rallied Tuesday, recharging the recent advance that has lifted the S&P 500 by 8% in less than two weeks. But the gains petered out Wednesday as the day’s news served as something of a reality check, said Steven Goldman, market strategist at Weeden & Co.

Alcoa’s massive job losses and profit warnings from Time Warner and Intel added to the weakness. Tensions in the Middle East and the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine were also in focus. Plunging oil and gold prices hit energy and metal stocks.

Investors were also at the mercy of seasonal factors, with more investors in the market now after a low-volume period surrounding the holidays, said Brian Battle, vice president at Performance Trust Capital Partners.

“Attendance is higher and people are paying attention again to the numbers,” said Battle. “I don’t think the jobs news is that surprising, but it’s a reminder that we continue to face a global economic erosion.”

He said some uncertainty about the timeline and content of an economic stimulus plan was also in the mix.

Looking forward, “I think the outlook for stocks has improved, but it’s still not perfect,” said Goldman. “We continue to see under performance in the banking sector and that’s probably going to continue.”

He said that on the upside, the November bear market lows will probably hold up, due to a number of technical factors and measures of investor sentiment.

“I think the bottom’s been made,” Goldman said. “It’s just a matter of how much upside we have here.”

Labor market: A pair of weak job market reports sparked worries ahead of Friday’s big government report.

Private employers cut 693,000 jobs from their payrolls in December, according to the latest survey from payroll-services firm ADP. That was up from the revised 476,000 jobs lost in November and worse than what economists were expecting.

Planned layoffs at firms slipped 8.4% in December from the previous month but nearly quadrupled from a year ago, according to a separate report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

The government releases its December jobs report Friday. Employers are expected to have cut 475,000 jobs from their payrolls after cutting 533,000 jobs in the previous month, according to Briefing.com forecasts. The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, is expected to have risen to 7% from 6.7% in the previous month.

Ahead of that, the weekly jobless claims report is due Thursday.

Alcoa: The aluminum maker said late Tuesday it will cut 15,000 jobs, or 13% of its worldwide workforce, by the end of the year. Alcoa (AA, Fortune 500) also said it will halve capital spending and sell off four of its businesses as it cuts production in the wake of the global economic slowdown.

The Dow component plunged 10% Wednesday.

Corporate profits: Chipmaker Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) posted a second revenue warning Wednesday. The Dow component said weaker demand for its technology products will cut into its fourth-quarter revenue. Shares fell 6%.

CNNMoney.com parent Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500) warned it will take about $25 billion in writedowns in the fourth quarter, leading it to post a loss. Shares fell over 6% Wednesday.

On the upside, Monsanto (MON, Fortune 500) rallied almost 18% after the world’s largest seed company reported higher-than-expected fiscal first-quarter earnings and boosted its full-year profit outlook.

Other stock movers: A variety of financial stocks slumped, including Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500).

Oil prices declined 12%, sending energy stocks lower. Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500), Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500), Noble Energy (NBL) and Occidental Petroleum (OXY, Fortune 500) all fell in active trading.

Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers beat winners by four to one on volume of 2.08 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, decliners topped advancers by more than three to one on volume of 1.53 billion shares.

Other economic news: The nation’s budget deficit will likely rise to a record $1.2 trillion, or 8.3% of GDP, in 2009, not including the cost of the Obama economic stimulus plan, the government said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve released its economic forecast along with the minutes from its last policy-setting meeting. In the minutes, the central bank said that GDP growth will slow this year, and that even with using unusual methods to try to help the economy, the outlook is going to remain weak for a while. The report also said unemployment will rise significantly into 2010.

Bonds: Treasury prices fell, raising the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 2.49% from 2.45% Tuesday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions. Yields on the 2-year, 10-year and 30-year Treasurys all hit record lows last month.

Lending rates improved. The 3-month Libor rate slipped to 1.40% from 1.41% on Tuesday according to Bloomberg.com. That was a 4 1/2-year low. Overnight Libor fell to 0.11% from 0.12%. Libor is a key bank lending rate.

Other markets: In global trading, Asian markets ended mixed. European markets slumped in the afternoon with the London FTSE down 2.6%.

European markets reacted to the Russia-Ukraine dispute as well, after the two nations said the supply of natural gas to Europe was completely shut off Wednesday. Each side blamed the other for the cut-off.

The dollar tumbled versus the euro and yen.

U.S. light crude oil for February delivery slumped $5.78 to settle at $42.80 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices fell after a government report showed a bigger-than-expected surge in crude oil and gasoline stockpiles last week, reflecting the continued drop in demand. Prices have fallen over $100 per barrel in the last six months.

Oil prices, always sensitive to Middle East tensions, have risen over the last two weeks as the Israeli air and ground offensive has raged on.

COMEX gold for February delivery fell $24.30 to settle at $841.70 an ounce.

Gasoline prices rose 3.9 cents to a national average of $1.727 a gallon, according to a survey of credit-card swipes released Wednesday by motorist group AAA.