Not a poll, but just curious who invests in the markets.

personally, I have some stock in very established companies.

Thanks

Johnny

I am in only in the 401K type plan. I have bonds, a S&P 500 fund and a lesser amount in a NASDAQ type fund.

I'm all over the place. I have individual stocks, equity funds, bond funds, money-market funds, mortgage-backed securities, annuities. I'm not into hedges, collars, or derivatives in general beyond simple call/put options on listed stocks. Diversity is my watchword, not only across standard growth/value and large/mid/small cap, but also across investment vehicles and institutions. At my last job I received quite a few stock options. With one exception (which I later came to regret) I always cashed them in immediately and put the money into other stuff. My coworkers all thought I was crazy, the stock kept going higher and they thought holding on was the thing to do. My attitude was that I already worked there, I had stock through the employee purchase plan, plus the options that hadn't vested yet, that was quite enough eggs in one basket already thankyouverymuch. Guess who had the last laugh when the stock finally did tank?

Nobody has yet come up with a way to win no matter which way the market goes; anybody who claims otherwise is a fool or a liar or both. That being the case, you just can't beat a well-diversified portfolio for risk:reward ratio. I weathered the storm pretty well, breaking even or losing only a little while many people I know were losing their shirts, and I've seen almost the same gains they have in the recent rally. That's exactly what I planned when I enlisted not one but several smart advisors to pick my investments for me; any one might screw up, but as a group they'll do at least as well as any other sample. I'd love to think that I can find great investments on my own, but that's sheer hubris. Even if I had as much time as the pros to read every single prospectus and report and analyze all the financial details, I'd still be a second-class investor at best. Even with fees, it's better for me to concentrate on being first-class at what I do for a living and let first-class investors do what they do for a living.

I mainly go with index funds. Low fees, returns after expenses consistently beat 2/3rds of actively managed funds.

We have most of our money in the Weitz Value fund, some in the Vanguard S&P 500 fund, an IRA in a fidelity fund, and (very few) individual stock shares.

I've got my 401k split between and S&P 500 Index Fund, a Russell 2000 Index Fund, a Small Cap Fund and a Bond Index Fund (to try and soften the hit when the market is down.) All of the first 3 are doing pretty darn good so far YTD. I just wish I could take the $250 a month I am forced to pay into Social Security and put it in my 401k.