Let's take a look at your investment portfolio.

In the current market, you should have most of your money in something fairly conservative, such as a coffee can buried under your house. If
you want to diversify, you might consider investing in two separate coffee cans. Whatever you do, do NOT put money in the stock market.

The reason you should avoid the stock market is that - to put it in technical terms - nobody knows anything. This is abundantly obvious from the financial reporting on the TV news. No matter what the stock market does, the TV news always boils down to this:
TOM BROKAW: The stock market today went either down or up, and nobody on this Earth knows why. For more, here's our financial expert.

FINANCIAL EXPERT: Tom, analysts attributed the movement of the market to a market movement, in which the market moves either upward or downward, depending on the direction of the market, although sometimes it holds still.

BROKAW: And is this expected to continue?
FINANCIAL EXPERT: Tom, it's too soon to tell.

In terms of solid information, we're in the same situation as members of a primitive tribe seeing their first solar eclipse. We're sitting around, pounding roots, when suddenly . . . the
sun is going out! We don't understand! We're scared!

Fortunately, we have witch doctors. They explain that the sun is being swallowed by a giant worm, and that they can scare it away by performing certain dance steps while waving a magic feather and wearing a hat made from the skull of a weasel. We believe them, because, hey, they must know something, right? How else could they become professional witch doctors?
It's the same with the stock market, except that instead of a giant worm, we have a recession; and instead of witch doctors, we have expert financial analysts; and instead of a weasel skull, we have Alan Greenspan.

That's why, for quality entertainment, you can't beat TV commercials for large investment institutions. They all have the same message, which is: "These are scary times for investors, so GIVE US YOUR MONEY! You can trust us, because we have a large building."

Remember those commercials? Ha ha! Of course not. Eighteen months ago, the same institutions were running commercials that said: "Everybody is getting rich in the stock market, so GIVE US YOUR MONEY! Then go shopping for your helicopter!"