For anyone watching the stock market come back 60% since the lows of 2009, it might seem like you should get back into the stock market and start buying stocks again. But you might want to stop and think twice before stock buying, since the market is still quite unsettled, due to unemployment fears, dollar weakness, and other factors.

When faced with an uncertain market, deciding what stocks to buy can be difficult. With years of a stock bubble in our past, we keep looking for returns that come only with situations that are bound to reverse. For example, throughout most of the 2000’s decade, the market was inflated by extremely low interest rates, and the resulting massive lending and borrowing by consumers and businesses alike. As we all know, the bursting of this bubble was a rude awakening for people around the globe.

It’s hard not to keep coming back to buying stocks as a way to rebuild one’s investment nest egg or portfolio. Today, stock picking is nowhere near as easy as it was in the 1990’s or in the last decade, since stock bubbles drove all stocks up, and everyone had winning stock picks whether they were experts or not. Instead, the choice now of which stocks to buy will require more education, even for experienced investors, and decisions that must be made more frequently, instead of expecting the market to always go up. Stock buying has some new twists in it, which can make it both more risky and less risky for the average investor.

You might consider buying ETFs. Exchange traded funds are similar to mutual funds, but they trade like stocks. So you can purchase the indexes, you can purchase currencies or commodities, but you are buying shares just like stocks, and not having to deal with minimum investments and so on. Another way to trade this uncertain market is to buy options. Options are becoming popular, because the returns are greater incrementally than they would be trading the underlying stock. They can also be an excellent way to protect one’s self against market fluctuations. You can purchase “put” to protect against stocks going down, and “call” options to capitalize on stocks going up. This is a whole area of investing that requires education and expertise, so be sure you also invest time in learning to trade these derivatives, and not just invest money blindly. While stock buying might have changed, there is always a way to make money in any market. Finding new ideas for buying stocks and new vehicles for investing is one way you can get into the market to make money no matter the market direction.