The Ignorant Investor

Not much has caught my eye these past few days. There have been various news items- the productivity report, for one- that are probably worth comment, but I have nothing even arguably new, profound, or interesting to say on the issue of productivity in the last quarter of 2005.

Over the past few days I've sold about half my GE and BP stock and placed the proceeds into an S&P 500 fund. This move was part of a long-range plan to get out of owning individual stocks and move into index funds and ETFs, and on the bright side for GE shareholders, it almost guarantees a sharp rally in GE's stock over the next few months.

As of the beginning of March, year to date performance of the S&P 500 is pretty good relative to other products that led returns last year. After a long stretch of subpar performances, the Spyders are beating out the commodity ETFs, the emerging market ETF, gold, etc. Still trailing real estate and small caps, but both those products have been bid up so high, I'm constantly amazed at how well they continue to do. REITs . . . man, I don't know when that mania is going to end.

Definitely got no certainty on whether '06 will be bad or good for stocks, or just more of the same. Bond yields are up, and this might be a year where we eke out a 5% return. Adjusted for inflation, that would be something between nothing and crumbs.

Okay, obviously I'm not feeling to sparkly right now. Maybe that's why I haven't been posting....