Quandary; yup, that pretty much is my word for the day, if not longer........

catch22

Howdy,
You may find one of the below references to fit your investment thoughts; 'course on the other hand, you may not be afflicted by a quandary when investing.

Noun 1. quandary - a situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one; "finds himself in a most awkward predicament"; "the woeful plight of homeless people"
plight, predicament
care - a cause for feeling concern; "his major care was the illness of his wife"
difficulty - a condition or state of affairs almost beyond one's ability to deal with and requiring great effort to bear or overcome; "grappling with financial difficulties"
box, corner - a predicament from which a skillful or graceful escape is impossible; "his lying got him into a tight corner"
hot water - a dangerous or distressing predicament; "his views on race got him into political hot water"
2. quandary - state of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options
dilemma
perplexity - trouble or confusion resulting from complexity
double bind - (psychology) an unresolvable dilemma; situation in which a person receives contradictory messages from a person who is very powerful

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-03-19/bernanke-seen-not-knowing-jobless-rate-less-than-fed-predictions.html

http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USL1E8EJCKF20120319

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-03-19/volatility-falling-most-since-fdr-as-valuations-tumble-like-1995.html

Other than some of the info from the above links; I clearly can see the path forward. Ya, right; Catch.
Perhaps this house should assemble 12 index or etf funds, scattered among the choices and just let them ride round and round in the investing roulette wheel.

Take care,
Catch

Anna

A couple of weeks ago I simultaneous moved all my equity holdings in the Fed employee's TSP to the G-Fund and moved money market fund's left in my husband's Fidelity 401k into their version of the same indexes as in the TSP. I am not finished; this is the first step especially with respect to reallocation of the Fidelity savings. But I think what I am doing qualifies very well as one version of your roulette wheel. I have always done well with our investments but don't see a way to do well or even mediocre right now. You need to add one of those articles that say money markets are going to fail just to make sure the roulette wheel is complete.

catch22

Howdy Anna,

I read that the G-fund is noted as a high yield stable value type of fund. I presume the Fido monies were moved into a short term bond fund or such.
Yes, the roulette wheel could have a few more adds for other choices, too.

The one area of which we do well with our money is attempting to slow the cost of stuff we use. Up until Oct of 2011; but for prior years for the full month of October, our local Kroger store and the makers of Cottonelle TP had sales on this product in conjunction with the National Cancer Foundation. Now, TP has a shelf life of about 2 years; so we would "front-run" the product pricing.

Normal pricing for the large, 20 roll Ultra soft is $16. The sales price for the prior 2 year period was $11. This is not a major budget item; but none the less, was an easy buy while at the store and we always piled these packages with every visit to grocery shop. We have a boat load of this stuff. Our house is not a coupon clipping house, but I do not "poo-poo" those who do; as there is money to be saved. We can gather more monies from our investments, rather than the time spent with coupon clipping and the Kroger store has plenty of decent sales to offset the effort.
One has to schedule time to the best advantage, eh?

I got a bit off track with this; but relates to the fact(s) that we here are all trying to keep the risk/reward for our portfolios in place to offset the cost of living our daily lives today and into the future.

Bond prices at this early hour are set to be positive, initially,

Regards,
Catch