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Vicente
2006 Nov 2, 7:05am
I'm going LONG on canned food and shotgun shells :-)
Just kidding. Depends on your time horizon. I bought into the stock market in 2002 and 2003 during the long slide. Now, many of those purchases have a decent return. But I have a long view, generally speaking.
As someone else said if you interest is 6-months to 1-year then CD's, bonds, mutual funds are the way to go. Even NetBank had a pretty decent interest rate on their money-market account last time I looked. I got fed up with them due to their inability to bank-link my BankofAmerica account though.
If your time-frame is short, then even Index Funds and ETF's I would not consider safe. QQQQ for example if you bought it a year ago like a friend did you'd still be waiting for it to change from red to green.
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This topic has been brought up in previous threads, but I thought we should revisit it again.
Many of us are waiting to purchase homes based on anticipated declines in the housing market, and each of us may or may not purchase based on whatever market parameters and/or personal issues we care about. Some of us have a fair amount of cash to park somewhere waiting for the right time to use some or all of it for a home purchase. The question is, where should one put all this cash, based on today's conditions?
Stocks, mutual funds and that general asset class have had very good returns over the past several years, but the stock market appears to be possibly sputtering of late. Hard commodities like oil, gold and other precious metals are good if you are a doomsayer and expect geopolitical turmoil. However, oil has done quite the flop lately, maybe having something to do with elections coming up, maybe not. There are always bonds and treasuries, but is the bond market in a bearish mood right now? A lot of this depends on what the Fed may or may not do with interest rates in the future. And, there's always cash. CD rates have held up, but where could they be headed - up or down?
Finally, how liquid do you need to keep your cash? Are you going to decide you need it for a down payment within a month or two, making some of these options (longer term bonds, for example) less attractive?
What is the best strategy for you?
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