Time to Start Looking Outside the U.S.

As I analyzed my daughter's Uniform Gifts to Minors numbers this weekend, I had a sickening feeling of "Why bother to put more money in right now?" The headlines are all so bad. Frankly, every headline is bad. I have not read a single positive piece about the economy in this country in the last month. It is as if nothing good is happening anywhere in the economy. Defaults on the increase, unemployment on the increase, taxes on the increase, orders on the decrease.

Why bother?

Then I thought again about it and said, "OK, I knew enough not to put money in for the last two years. I dodged a big bullet." But is the gun still firing? Are we still in the cross-hairs at Dow 8100 that we were at Dow 13,000? 12,000? 11,000? And so on.

And, heck, she's 15 years old. You have to view us as if we are Japan in 1991, with so much more to fall.

Will we be in this situation for the next six years, the time frame when I envision my daughter having the money?

Sure.

Could be.

But that's a bigger risk than not contributing or trying to time it for 666 on the S&P 500, the generational low that Doug Kass called and that Rick Bensignor acknowledges this morning.

So then the discussion becomes, where do I put it? The money's at Fidelity. I have the fund in Contra, Equity Income and Blue Chip Growth. Frankly, I don't have any desire to increase any of those holdings.

I could easily augment any of those. But you know what? I think that the debate here isn't putting more in; I have the exposure. The debate is, do I put more money in this country? The negative headlines are about this country. I believe this country will be range-bound for some time.

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