If you’ve been watching the market at all, you have probably been trying to decide whether to stay in or get into cash investments. The economy is still lagging, employment numbers falling, home prices dragging… it’s hard to figure out whether it’s even worth investing money in this situation.
Lately, many investors are moving into cash or things like gold, that do better in bad markets. Keeping cash on the sidelines, in addition to some stronger investments as part of your portfolio, may be a good idea. If you are not an experienced investor, who knows how to make money in down or level markets, you could get royally screwed by keeping money in index mutual funds for example. The old saw about keeping money forever in a “good growth mutual fund” is a lot of hoo hah in markets like this, because the fact is these types of mutual funds have barely performed over 5% in the past 10 year period.