The Motley Fool's CAPS investing service is one of the newest additions to the investing community at Fool.com, and it's another great way for investors to work together to beat the market. One of the features in CAPS allows users to set up a blog to talk about their picks, investing strategy, market view, or their favorite baseball team (if they so desire).

I've scoured through the CAPS blog universe to bring you a generous helping of the top blog posts of the past week.

So when do we go panning for gold among the financials?
The housing market is hurting -- we all know that. But now, like a bad cold in a kindergarten classroom, the nasty cough from housing is getting passed to other industries. Right now, the financials are showing a definite case of the sniffles. Bear Stearns and its failing hedge funds have helped accelerate this, and investors are getting very skittish about making kissy-face with most of the banks out there right now.

Fear in the markets typically produces opportunity at some point. The trick, of course, is knowing when that "some point" hits. Chk999, one of CAPS' top players, has taken to pondering when el tiempo derecho is for the financials. Among the group, he thinks that Income Investor picks Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and US Bancorp (NYSE:USB) could be worth a look.

What has Cramer said this time?
No, I'm not talking about his flip-flopping calls on Rule Breakers pick Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) -- my fellow Fool Rick Munarriz already covered that. This time we're talking about Jim Cramer's take on real estate, including his opinion that homeowners down 20% should walk away from their houses. Allstar13913, a CAPS All-Star, thought the advice was a bit funny. Check out his blog post, watch the video, and let the CAPS community know whether you think big Jim is onto something or just blowing smoke.

A choppy time in the friendly skies
Has anybody else noticed that planes can't seem to take off on time? I'm a big fan of Southwest, but I can't recall the last time that I was on a Southwest flight that took off at the advertised time. But I digress. Anywho, CAPS player MaverickAtWork, also a fan of Southwest, took some time on her blog to talk about the idea of investing in airline stocks. Though she has taken an interest in Republic Airways Holdings (NASDAQ:RJET), she's not terribly bullish on the industry as a whole.

Ready to go fishing in the mortgage market?
CAPS All-Star hall9999 knows it pays to think outside the box. In this case, the box is the poor environment for mortgage-related companies. Avoiding the obvious troublemakers like Countrywide (NYSE:CFC) and American Home Mortgage, he has identified what he believes is a great way to profit from the housing market without the need for antacid. Check out his recent blog post for why Thornburg Mortgage (NYSE:TMA) may be worth a look.

It's hard out there for a bear
Besides giving a great take on the Academy Award-winning song from Hustle & Flow, CAPS Top Fool SpecBear explains his bearish position in his most recent blog post. If you're anything north of bearish right now, you might want to make sure that you have your morning coffee before reading this one -- his CAPS portfolio isn't dominated by red thumbs because he loves the color.

Setting the record straight on Apple
I got my hands on one of Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) new iPhones for the first time over the weekend. I have to admit that it blew away my expectations -- that's one slick piece of electronics. Mr. Market hasn't missed the potential impact that this handy little device could have on Apple's business, and the stock has jumped almost 100% since last year. CAPS player turleymuller, though, thinks that Barron's shortchanged the potential impact of the product in a recent article. Check out Turley's blog for the lowdown.

Still the Foolery leader!
For great stock pickers short on cash, the fine folks at the Fool have been kind enough to rig up some great contests through CAPS. Currently, Fools can log on to CAPS and join the "Number of Contestants + $1" Summer Foolery contest. Currently, there are 1,617 Fools entered in this contest. I took the time to run the numbers and came up with $1,618 as the total pot o' gold that the winner will take home.

Right now, CAPS player joelbow7 is the lucky leader licking her lips thinking about that cool $1,618. In a recent blog post, she talks about the inspiration for her contest-leading stock picks.

So now it's your turn -- get off the sidelines, join CAPS, and start up your own CAPS blog to share your knowledge and insights with the rest of the CAPS universe.

More CAPS Foolishness:

Fool contributor Matt Koppenheffer shares some thoughts of his own on his CAPS blog. He owns shares of Bank of America, but does not own shares of any of the other companies mentioned. The Fool's disclosure policy does not have its own CAPS blog, but if it did, it would blow your mind.