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I’m curious. Would you feel comfortable listing some of your major ETF positions here? You seem to be a major ETF investor/trader. ETF’s are what I hope to build my work-in-progress future portfolio under and would like to know how others approach them in terms investing.

Raymond: by the way, there’s a FANTASTIC dividend yielder ETF for the financials: PGF. It invests in Financial Preferred shares, with their high dividends, currently at 10% for the fund. Thats actually a great ETF for an IRA, imo.

Well I definitely don’t profess to be an expert in investment strategy and tactics…however I must admit, it’s incredibly hard not to be drawn towards a small measure of market timing. Dollar cost averaging sounds like a great concept on paper, but in practice it’s not always easy to put into use. Despite a steady cash flow, it would have been tough to keep advising someone to continue plowing money into the market during the market plunging winter months of 2008.

Admittedly, I have yet to fully figure out my best investment approach…

The Financial ETF you mentioned looks very, very interesting though. I will have to look into it.

Obviously the easiest exit strategy is sell if 10% down, and sell half if 30% up, and let the rest ride on a 10% trailing stop.

Personally, I’ve made money by having positions in XLF (Financial ETF, a sector throughly beat down, and basically told by the gov’t that it wont be allowed to fail) and XLE, (an Energy stock ETF) that until recently didnt go anywhere, until we as investors realized all this bailout-nation-spending and printing money would drive inflation up. Last week I opened up positions in a Basic Materials ETF (not sure of the ticker symbol ATM)

My point is, you did good by being in cash. A previous poster mentioned that your cash position should be reserved for short term (<5 year) outlook on your stock. Otherwise, tread carefully, and be prudent.

And congrats on weathering the downturn, I was doing well up until last month, but since all is good market-wise, I’m not too worried about my 6 month picture.

Per Yahoo News…..Upbeat economic news & data were released today. Despite the GM bankruptcy filing, consumer spending fell only slightly and the U.S. manufacturing sector is seeing slower slowdowns than before. U.S. construction is rebounding slowly. Indicators show that things aren’t really all that bad that this is a great time for a stock market rally. Remember, the market rebounds 6 months before the economy does so if you start investing when the economy seems recovered, it will already be too late! Now is the time to start putting money into your online brokers and start investing!! Hop to it

Well, while I believe market timing is a bad approach to long term investing, I also still think there is a right and wrong time to start investing. I would much rather be on the sidelines wishing I was in than heavily invested in the market and wishing I was out. I’ve been on the inside looking out before for many years, and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling. That’s why I’m taking my pretty time this time around.

With markets at historical lows (30-50% down even after the run up in the last few months), any investment decisions I make now will ultimately pan out. However, I’m just working to convince myself that the market has stabilized and that conditions are legitimately backed up by major economic indicators such as housing/real estate, consumer consumption, and employment figures. So far, I’ve yet to be convinced. Just trying to be super cautious. Remember, just a few months ago many people were talking about a mild depression, let alone just an economic recession. And now it looks like things are suddenly all better. Just too quick of a turn around and too optimistic too soon in my opinion.