LAST EDITED ON Sep-03-09 AT 06:20AM (MST)[p]I sold all my mutual funds that I have ready access to earlier this week. I've got some other miscellaneous accounts around -- from different employers I have worked for that I have not gotten around to rolling over to my rollover IRA (I'm not all that keen about following my investments, somewhat to my detriment I might add) -- that I haven't liquidated yet. My view is that the market is over priced and likely to drop, and 'tis the season (September and October are the months the stock market has tanked big time when it does so -- 2008, 1987, 1929). Folks say you can't market time, and I buy that theory. At the same time, if you think the market is substantially over valued I think it may make sense to get out.
I haven't seen any substantive improvements. Sure, maybe some of the stimulus money may be bolstering things (and even that is dubious), but that is temporary. I don't see job growth. The people at Toyota are for the first time ever decommissioning plant capacity for producing 1+ million cars per year and laying off the associated workers. I think the toxic assets that started this whole ball rolling down hill remain lurking out there, they have not been addressed.
What I believe happened -- RE stock market growth this year -- is investors got the impression the federal government wasn't going to let some things crash. But that is not the same as fixing the underlying problems and working through the conditions -- toxic underperforming loans -- that led to the problem. These toxic assets remain out there and the piper has not yet been paid.
