The news media seems to be cautiously mentioning green shoots sprouting for the economy, with their descriptions of the rates of unemployment slowing down seemingly good news.
Problem is, unemployment is still increasing even though the rates are slowing down. If you have no salary, would you still be putting money into your stock portfolio?
In the current market situation, most would be happy to be able to salvage something out of their stocks portfolio. Many others have lost the shirts off their backs.
But like what Warren Buffett says, it is when others are fearful, it is time for you to get greedy. Prices for many stocks and mutual funds are at its lowest and you know the most basic adage of all, “buy low sell high”.
You can go for mutual funds which provide a steady flow of income, even if the value of the stocks themselves have fallen. The cash from these investments come from either dividends or interest payments.
Be wary of mutual funds charging more than 1% in management fees though. That would be taking away too much of your potential profits.
When investing in mutual funds, remember that you are investing for the long term. As the main feature of such funds is in diversification, you can rest assured that even if one or some of the stocks fail, the rest of the portfolio is still safe.
You may also want to consider stocks in the commodities and other essentials like water. Water is such a precious resource that most of the water technology companies, like Hyflux, will have plenty of business to come, especially in all the dry regions of the world.
Green technology could also be a good bet as the world is slowly coming to the fact that our resources are finite and a way must be found to recycle our resources.
With all the money printing by the central banks of the world, especially the Fed, it would also be good to put some money into precious metals such as gold and silver.
As you may know, gold and silver prices have been rising steadily of the years and they make great investments which can capitalize on the weakness of the greenback. Other commodities also have great potential, especially as everyone needs to eat. With the growing middle class in places such as China, their appetite for good food would increase and causing the prices of staples such as sugar to rise.