With the exception of a short term trade of Citigroup @ $1.00 in May 2009 and unloading 1 month later in April 2009 @ $4.00, my wife and I DO NOT own any stocks. I do admit that I have 10% of my retirement account in a 401K aggressive mutual fund. The remaining 90% is in an IRA. My wife's IRA is in cash.

I still own 4 real estate properties which I purchased in the 1990s including the 1 I live in. I should have dumped more real estate investment properties, but at least I dumped 4 other real estate properties around the real estate peak for a gain. Real estate is more difficult to acquire than stocks so we (my wife and I) decided to hold some real estate properties. The values have taken a beating, but we still get the same rent for them.

Currently, I do not trust the overall fundamentals of the economy. I also do not like the long term chart patterns of the S&P 500, the DOW, and the Nasdaq. However, the Nasdaq has the better looking chart pattern. I've analyzed many times the very long term chart patterns of the DOW and the S&P 500 from the 1920s to present and it appears that the current pattern hasn't established a strong enough base to hold at these levels. The market needs to drop down again and hold slightly above the Mar. 2009 lows to establish a base. Otherwise, there is a risk that the market could crash so fast and go even lower than the Mar. 2009 low. Remember, what took the market 4 years to build, it took only 10 months to go back. What took 3 years to build, It took only 1 month to drop back even lower. We've been in an uptrend for 5 months, and it may only take weeks to go back down. I'm waiting on the sidelines.