Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Stay in stocks?

So says Jeremy Siegel as my quarterly 401(k) report tells me that I just lost $10K over the last quarter. On the personal front, my decision to reallocate from stocks to TIPS isn't paying off that well either.

For the current quarter, it seems that neither stocks nor bonds are really delivering any returns. This is the quandary that money managers face as they chase higher returns - so when the next 'big thing' comes along they plunge into it. The dot-com crash was followed by herding into MBS. What's the next big thing?

As fiscal stimulus stalls, it may become apparent that the government will need to spend more and spend directly - shove ready or not. One possibility is infrastructure investment and who knows, perhaps we really need it. And it's not just the Americas that infrastructure investment is being touted. Example, here.

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