It's a new year and a new slew of short-sighted advice that never benefits many in the long run (and rarely in the short run). This year the focus of the markets will indirectly be on the U.S. Presidential Elections, which draws comparisons to past election years -- especially the years when an incumbent president is not up for re-election, which has not happened in 8 years (of course, 2008's market had extraordinary influences on it, making it a poor comparison for any other situation).
While I could make predictions about the Dow and other random sectors as I have in past years, this past year was bad all-around (although, not by the previously mentioned 2008 standards). While I generally like to invest in deflated sectors like gas or gold, the minor decline across the boards (notwithstanding heavy declines in other markets). I have picked up a new strategy to use on my brokerage account involving ETFs, but it rates as "too soon to assess" (i.e. extol its virtues).
Negative returns may sound like bad news for the market, and a decline would come as bad news to most investors, but I think it will be a reasonably decent year with a fourth quarter that pushes the markets into positive territory. More importantly, a sound strategy of rebalancing quarterly (as I have been doing) or a comfortable allocation among various sectors is the best way to plan for the coming year of uncertainty. Not surprisingly, this strategy is also the best plan for any year. It is the most basic strategy, but I do not anticipate many people profiting from any individual sector, so focusing on one would be unlikely to bear fruit (maybe even more unlikely than in other years, although high rewards never accompany safe bets).
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