It has been a long time -way too long- like last Summer - since I got into updating this commentary. I will again try to renew my commitment to this web page.

It seems like I was actually optimistic at the end of the summer of 2008. Then all hell started to break loose. By the middle to the end of September and early October I went through all of my managed accounts and eliminated just about all positions. I brought everyone up to about a 70% to 100% position in cash. I did this not to time the market. I did it because I have a lot of clients, as a matter of fact, most of them, that need this money. That may sound strange - because you may be thinking that who doesn't need this money? - but it isn't. There are some people that could weather a big storm like this simply because they have the resources to do so. They have earning power or they have other cash or - if they lost half their money, they would still have enough to carry them for a lot of years. For those that were not in that situation - which was most,  I took the conservative approach.

I felt that  I would be better off losing a client because they only lost "some" money than lose a client and have to tell them to go out and find a job in retirement because we lost 50-60% of their account or more. In the end, if you want to call this the end, I did a good job ( pat myself on the back) of preserving principal. I do not want to publicly quote specific numbers because that is a slippery slope but i will say that I am finding that I have done significantly better than those that just held onto whatever they had.

But the above is only temporary. Now I am in a situation where my clients have a lot of cash and the question is "What do we do with it?"  I am taking it slow but trying to get some of the cash reinvested. I think that the markets are low and there is opportunity. But, at the same time the banking thing is still little understood and GM, Chrysler, AIG and Citi are still sitting out there. They are all making deals with the government and they are all in completely uncharted water. Individually or combined those companies control so much of the economy it is difficult to be overly committed to anything. So I am trying to buy into a few of the more broadly diversified indexes along with the financials, the preferred stocks, bond funds and bond ETF's including junk bond indexes and maintain a stance where preservation of principal is the primary objective. Bonds and stocks that pay significant dividends are the most conservative way to approach this. But at the same time, tech has been in an uptrend so we shouldn't ignore the NASDAQ for the more aggressive investor.

In conclusion, I think for now, we are in rally that has weak underpinnings. I think it is somwhat of a relief rally in that the banks seem to be in a position where they may dissapear into some form of goverment control  - but they will not completely collapse and cause a domino type financial collapse accross the entire system. Since investors feel that we will ultimately survive - they fell that "good" companies are good buys. 

That is all for now. I will update this thing much more often - My objective is once per week. please check back!