Hilton head homes for sale

After some years of working just to reach the top of the corporate ladder, you certainly deserve a break. It's time you indulge yourself.

Why not go for the ultimate vacation getaway? Invigorate yourself with the peaceful sound of the sea, the sweet and gentle touch of the ocean breeze, the sight of dazzling blue waters as well as rich flora and fauna. If you have been longing to experience these priceless natural treasures, then Hilton Head Island is the right place for you.

Hilton head homes for sale is one of the best vacation destinations in the world. This second largest barrier island along the eastern coast of the United States spans 55.5 square miles. It takes pride in its breathtaking 12-mile beachfront that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. Hilton Head homes welcomes about 2.5 million tourists every year, making it one of the leading tourist spots in South Carolina and in the U.S.

This beautiful island in Beaufort County has nearly 40,000 inhabitants, according to the 2000 population report. Most of those who have settled down here are Hispanics and wealthy migrants from northern states. What made these people decide to make hilton head real estate is evident: the pristine beauty of the place.

Staying in Hilton Head Island is not a problem. There are many houses, villas, apartments and condominium units for rent. You can find most of them in Sea Pines, Forest Beach, Palmetto Dunes and Shipyard plantations.

Stocks Surge on Geithner Pick

U.S. stocks surged Friday after word leaked that President-Elect Barack Obama plans to nominate New York Federal Reserve President Timothy J. Geithner as his nominee for U.S. Treasury Secretary.

There were other news items affecting the market Friday, including more fretting about the fates of Citigroup (C) and the U.S. auto industry. But major market indexes remained flat until reports of the Geithner pick arrived, sparking a rebound from Thursday's plunge to an 11-year low.

On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 494.13 points, or 6.54%, to 8,046.42. The broad S&P 500 index gained 47.59 points, or 6.32%, to 800.03. And, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 68.23 points, or 5.18%, at 1,384.35.

On Thursday, by contrast, the Dow had plunged 444.99 points, and the S&P 500 closed at 752.44 -- its lowest level since April 1997. Friday's rally brings the S&P 500 back above its October 2002 lows.

Several market observers said Friday's reaction to the Geithner pick demonstrates a thirst for stronger leadership from Washington.

"There is a void of market confidence," says Bill Larkin, fixed income portfolio manager at Cabot Money Management.

In recent days, as stocks tumbled to levels not seen since the 1990s, many market commentators partly blamed confusing signals coming from Washington. Congress spent the week arguing but failing to agree on a bailout plan for General Motors (GM), Ford (F) and Chrysler. And, current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was criticized for shifts in the financial bailout plan.

Stocks rallied on the Geithner pick because "he's the right man at the right time," says Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners. As president of the New York Fed, Geithner was involved in Paulson's efforts to prop up the financial system, but there's hope he can also improve on the current administration's efforts. Geithner also served as a Treasury undersecretary during the Clinton administration and helped respond to the Asian economic crisis in 1997.

"He has a lot of experience and certainly he knows the canyons of the financial markets," Cardillo says.

"I expect [Geithner] will treat the current situation with the urgency that it deserves," says Ward McCarthy, principal at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates. "I also expect him to be far more creative than Treasury Secretary Paulson."

Financial markets may be reassured Obama didn't choose a fresh newcomer who wouldn't understand the players in the crisis and couldn't hit the ground running, Larkin says. The pick "had to be someone who is currently in the system."

It's expected that Obama will name several key members of his economic team next week. Reports Friday said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is Obama’s pick for commerce secretary.
Trading in stocks was active Friday, a day that November stock options expired. Bonds prices and the dollar index fell Friday, while gold and crude oil futures moved higher.

Also in the headlines, Congress headed home for Thanksgiving, leaving U.S. automakers still struggling for California loans to keep going. General Motors (GM) Friday extended its holiday shutdown and said it would make more production cuts.

Shares of Citigroup (C) fell almost 20% Friday, following Thursday's drop of 26%, its worst one-day percentage decline ever. Initially Citi stock was buoyed Friday by a Wall Street Journal report that Citi was weighing the possibility of auctioning off pieces of the financial giant or even selling the company outright. But chief executive Vikrum Pandit said on Friday he does not want to sell Citi's Smith Barney brokerage unit or break up the troubled bank, based on several news organizations' accounts of a Friday morning conference call with Pandit's staff.

Though the Geithner pick lifted the market's mood, investors have been continually reminded of the weak state of the economy both in the U.S. and globally.

On Friday, European stock markets fell, with major indexes in London, Frankfurt and Paris down 2% or more. Asian markets finished mixed, with Tokyo stocks rising 2.70% and Hong Kong gaining 2.93%, but Shanghai falling 0.72%.

In a speech Friday, a Fed official warned the U.S. economy could stay weak for quite a while. "We likely are in for a protracted period of poor economic performance," Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said.

On Friday, President Bush signed into law an extension of jobless benefits. Earlier in the year, Bush expressed doubts about further benefit extensions, but he came to support the legislation as new figures showed new claims for jobless aid had reached a 16-year high. In what could be its last vote of the year, the Senate approved a measure Thursday that would provide up to three months of extra benefits for those whose unemployment benefits have run out or are about to expire. The House passed the bill in October.

There were no significant economic reports released Friday.

In other U.S. markets Friday, the 10-year Treasury note slipped 1-20/32 to 104-22/32 for a yield of 3.2%, while the 30-year Treasury bond dropped 4-06/32 to 114-12/32 for a yield of 3.69%.

December West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures hovered around the $50-per-barrel mark on Friday, ending up 96 cents at $50.38 per barrel.

December gold futures rose almost 7% to 800.50 per ounce.

What Five Key Stock Market Signals Are Telling Us Now

As U.S. stocks hit new 11-year lows on Nov. 20, many investors say they just don't know what's ahead.

There's a general lack of clarity on a wide range of issues—the state of the U.S. and global economies, problems in the credit markets, the plans of the federal government, and the fate of hedge funds that are being forced to sell off assets. Unfortunately, much of the fog of the financial crisis will not be cleared up anytime soon.

However, there are several key signals that traders, strategists, and fund managers typically watch closely in times of uncertainty. Given the unprecedented environment, it's not clear if any will be a reliable guide this time, but these signals do give investors something to monitor for clues to the road ahead.

Here's a review of five of those signals and what they're saying now:
1. Technical Signals

Technical strategists analyze and predict market activity based on previous market moves. This week, the stock market failed a key test: The broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index not only fell below its October 2008 lows, but the big-cap benchmark also blasted below its lows during the nasty bear market of 2002.

On the morning of Nov. 20, the S&P 500 briefly tested these 2002 lows in the morning but then rebounded. But late in the day, stocks sank and the S&P 500 closed at 752.44. That's below the index's October 2002 low of 768.63 and the lowest level for the index since April 1997.

The 2002 lows are "a major support level," says Dave Rovelli, equity trader at Canaccord Adams.

Richard Sparks of Schaeffer's Investment Research says "you could see a cascade of selling" if stocks stay way below those prior lows. Before stocks fell to this level, people could "feel comfortable that that is a basement that the market might not go below."
2. Reports from Washington

Michael Yoshikami of YCMNET Advisors criticizes "a general lack of clarity from the Administration [and] federal agencies on what's happening and what the path out is."

On Nov. 20, Democratic congressional leaders said they would delay a vote on a bill to help the U.S. auto industry—efforts some Republicans have opposed—until December. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has raised eyebrows by changing the focus of the financial package a few times. Bush Administration officials are on their way out of office, but President-elect Barack Obama hasn't yet chosen his economic team, whose members would have no real power until Jan. 20 even if they were in place.

This flow of news from Washington is rattling investors, many market watchers say. "No one really has a good idea what the plan really is," says Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at R.W. Baird.

Chad Deakins, portfolio manager at RidgeWorth International Equity Fund (SCIIX), says he doesn't expect any clear signals from Washington until Obama takes office. "Until the new Administration comes to the White House and sets a tone and direction, it's hard to see strong upside in the equity markets," Deakins says.

Car Loan in Florida

Credit Markets: Finding the Weakest Links

Jacinto Torres, an associate director of S&P Rating Services, contributed to this report.

Who are the "weakest links" in the global debt market? At Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, we use the term to describe those companies, governments, or other debt-issuing entities rated B- or lower, with either a negative outlook from S&P or with ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications, and therefore most vulnerable to default. S&P updates this list monthly.

Negative outlooks and CreditWatch listings serve as good leading indicators of actual downgrades. The proportion of defaulters from the portfolios of the weakest links in the U.S. going back to 1999 in any one- or three-year period is higher than the proportion of defaulters from the entire pool of speculative-grade (issues rated below BBB-). The one-year default rate for weakest links, on average, was 6.6 times higher than for all issuers with speculative-grade ratings since 1999, and was 11 times higher at the end of 2007, when the U.S. speculative-grade default rate was at a 25-year low.

Global weakest links continue to increase sharply, as eroding credit quality leads to lower ratings and more entities with negative outlook or CreditWatch. As of Oct. 15 global weakest links increased for the eighth consecutive month, to 181 (see the full list), with combined rated debt worth over $388 billion.
Recession Is to Blame

The continued increase in weakest links is not surprising given the volatility in the credit markets and the unfolding recessionary conditions in the U.S. In the 2001 recession the sharp rise in defaults accompanied the rise in weakest links. In 2008, 54 of the 61 publicly rated companies that have defaulted through Oct. 15 were weakest links.

Since our September 2008 report, nine entities were removed from the list and 28 were added, for a net addition of 19 issuers. The final issuer added to the list was Uno Restaurant Holdings, which was upgraded to CCC from D following its decision to pay its Aug. 15 interest payment before the 30-day cure period expired.

Of the 28 additions to this month's list, 17 were from the U.S., seven from emerging markets, three from Europe, and one from Canada. The media and entertainment sector had the biggest increase in weakest links, with seven entities, followed by forest products and building materials with three.

The sector breakout of weakest links has consistently identified the media and entertainment, consumer products, forest products and building materials, and retail/restaurants sectors as most vulnerable to default. The media and entertainment sector showed the highest vulnerability to default, with 40 weakest links, constituting 22% of the total number of weakest links. This is followed by consumer products with 19 weakest links, and forest products and building materials and retail and restaurants sectors with 18 weakest links each. Entities in these sectors are particularly vulnerable to cyclical trends in the macroeconomic environment. Moreover, increased domestic and global competition has pressured these companies to adopt more aggressive financial policies, leading to some of the highest volumes of leveraged activity in the past several years.

Geographically, U.S.-based issuers (including those in tax havens such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands) are featured disproportionately on the weakest links list, accounting for 77.3%. This preponderance is partially attributed to the higher ratings penetration in the U.S. marketplace (see table 5). By volume, the 140 U.S.-based weakest links account for $346.30 billion of debt, or almost 90% of the total $388.52 billion of debt issued by all weakest links. Much of the dollar amount of the U.S. portion of the debt is attributable to giant automakers Ford Motor (F) and General Motors (GM), both of which are rated B-, with ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications.

How Obama Is Spending $150 Million

When college football fans watch the big Penn State vs. Ohio State game on Saturday, Oct. 25, there will be more going on than smash-mouth football. There will be smash-mouth politics, at least during the advertising breaks. It's the best chance before the Nov. 4 election for Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama to reach male voters, especially white male voters in two of the remaining swing states, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Senator Obama (D-Ill.), who raised $150 million in the month of September and may do nearly as well in October, will dominate the game's broadcast in Pennsylvania, according to Paul Roda, national sales manager of Harrisburg (Pa.) ABC affiliate WHTM. "There will be a lot of Obama, and more politics than any other single category, I believe," says Roda. It's the same story for the ABC affiliates in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, where the two candidates are battling for every vote.

Obama has a huge financial and tactical advantage in the final two weeks of the campaign. Senator McCain (R-Ariz.), who is participating in the public financing system for Presidential elections, has been limited to spending a total of $84 million in the two months before the vote. But Obama bypassed the public financing program and has continued to raise private donations.

The huge Obama cash kitty will give his campaign more maneuvering room in the complex dance that determines who can buy TV ads, when, and where.
"Fire Hose" of Funds

Not only can Obama afford to fund a more sweeping ground operation in key states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, and Florida, but he can well afford to pay the premiums that TV stations are charging as politicians compete against retailers, car dealers, and wireless phone companies that traditionally load up their ad buys in the last week of the month to bolster their end-of-the-month sales results.

Additionally, Obama can afford to buy both national and local ad slots, whereas McCain and the Republican National Committee have dropped national broadcast and cable buys to focus their more limited resources on targeted local buys in key swing states and congressional districts. An Obama campaign adviser, who asked not to be named, said: "It feels like we have a fire hose and they have a garden hose."

On Monday, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis predicted that by Election Day the McCain campaign and the RNC will have spent nearly $400 million for the two-month fall campaign, according to the Associated Press. He downplayed the impact of money on the advantage Obama currently enjoys in polls: "The lack of money in Wall Street has had more to do with the outcome of this last month politically than the money in Barack Obama's bank account."
Competing for Ad Slots

The World Series, whose first game was on Wednesday night, is tailor-made for the two campaigns. And the Fox affiliates in both the Tampa Bay area and Philadelphia, nestled in two of the last true battleground states, hope the Series between the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Philadelphia Phillies goes to seven games. A Fox official would only say that the network and local affiliates were in heavy discussions with both campaigns about ad time. Ad availability for the first two games in St. Petersburg is sold out, with both campaigns having made significant buys.

Stations like Harrisburg's WHTM and Tampa's WTVT charge a 25% to 50% premium for an ad that cannot be preempted by another advertiser paying more for the time. Obama's campaign has stocked up on such buys during the next two weeks. Most of McCain's buys are for a tier below that, which means campaign officials get notified if another advertiser is trying to buy the same time slot, and can spend more to hold the spot.

"Obama has such a huge cash advantage that he is forcing McCain to either buy the top-priced ad inventory that locks in the buy, or pay up because Obama's campaign can challenge every ad buy McCain makes in swing states.… Either way it means McCain can afford fewer ads even if they can get the slots," says Felix Dumbarton, an independent media consultant.
Two-Front Ad War

Both campaigns make their ad buys week by week. That's because they couldn't know back in August which states would be the most hotly contested. Of course, campaign officials assumed Ohio and Pennsylvania would be key states. But the same wasn't true of states such as Florida, which has only become competitive for Obama in the last few weeks. That has allowed the Democratic nominee to pull ad spending his campaign had earmarked for Michigan, Wisconsin, and Colorado, and push it into Florida, Virginia, Indiana, and Missouri. In a recent report covering the week of Sept. 28 to Oct. 4 by the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which monitors political ad spending and content, Obama outspent McCain and the RNC by more than 3 to 1 in Florida, and 8 to 1 in North Carolina.

Obama's financial advantage is making it difficult for McCain's campaign even to find ad inventory in premium programming slots in key media markets like Tampa and Jacksonville in Florida, Cleveland and Columbus in Ohio, and Harrisburg and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. "So they have to resort in many cases to advertising in programs with lower rating points, and that means you reach fewer people," says Dumbarton.

Obama also has been able to play a two-front media war against McCain, running both positive ads and attack ads. McCain has often chosen his battles week by week. For instance, in the week that preceded the last Presidential debate, 100% of McCain's ads were negative, according to the Wisconsin Advertising Project. Since then, after seeing a dip in the polling, McCain's campaign launched new positive ad messages, but attack ads still represent a majority of the ads running. During the same period, one-third of Obama's ads were negative.

Making it even tougher on McCain and the RNC is that Obama has been able to spend millions on relatively cheap Internet advertising, and even a small amount on video games, to reach the younger voters who are the heart of his base. McCain's biggest group, on the other hand, are seniors, and it costs much more to reach them in more traditional TV buys such as news, game shows, and soap operas.
Down-Ticket Races

Obama's fundraising advantage has also been a boon to the Democratic National Committee, which hasn't had to buttress Obama's ad buys with its own money the way the Republican National Committee has had to with the McCain campaign. That has allowed the DNC to better coordinate with the Democrats' House and Senate election committees and send its money into markets where there are hotly contested House and Senate races, and to help make the difference in races that have drawn closer. That's true in the Fourth District of Connecticut, where Republican Representative Christopher Shays suddenly looks vulnerable to challenger Jim Himes, and in Minnesota's Sixth District, where Republican Representative Michele Bachmann is dropping in the polls and opponent Elwyn Tinklenberg has received more than $1 million in new donations and an infusion of cash from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

According to ad monitoring firm TNS/CMAG, McCain spent $9.4 million on ads in key battleground states the week of Oct. 12, and is spending more than that this week. McCain has moved his buys into the expensive media market of Washington, D.C., where he can reach suburbs in Northern Virginia as he tries to make up some ground in an attempt to keep Virginia a red state. The RNC is spending about $1 million a day between now and Nov. 4 on pro-Republican/anti-Democrat ads that help McCain in his key areas.

Meantime, Obama has budgeted at least $30 million in TV ads in contested states in the final two weeks. That is, in part, a function of there not being much ad time left to buy during worthwhile programming in those areas. That still leaves tens of millions of dollars available for Obama to spend on get-out-the-vote efforts in the states he needs, as well as closing the gap in states where McCain is ahead but vulnerable, such as West Virginia and Nevada.

Investing: The Pros' Crisis PlaybookInvesting: The Pros' Crisis Playbook

Talk to investment strategists about where to place equity bets over the next six to 12 months and they turn squeamish. Most admit they can't tell how long or deep the recession will be, or how risk-averse investors will continue to be after the heavy blows they've absorbed in the stock market downturn.

Some will tell you there are few compelling buying opportunities in the near term, while others, rather than admit to pessimism, doubt, or the failure of diversified asset allocation, emphasize moves for patient investors. Patience, in this case, is for those who can afford to not see a positive return on their investment any time soon.

Since the investing world has been turned upside down in the crisis—with volatile market swings a near-daily occurrence, including a 514-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average on Oct. 22—BusinessWeek decided to check back with financial pros we have spoken with in the past to get their take on the current situation. Deciding which investment gurus to tap for this story wasn't simple, given how overly optimistic market pros' predictions were for 2008, even among those forecasters who have proved the most reliable in the past.
Another Leg Down?

Rob Arnott, chairman of Newport Beach (Calif.)-based Research Affiliates, an investment management firm that licenses ideas to companies like Pimco, says he wouldn't be surprised if there's another leg down in this bear market. The stocks that have held up best through the turmoil and carnage—growth-oriented names in the technology, telecommunications, and health-care industries—likely have yet to fully reflect the risks that lie ahead, he thinks.

"If we're in the early stages of a recession, then presumably we're in the late stages of a bear market," he says. "Within the next six to 12 months, we will see outright capitulation in the growth sectors. That will set the stage for a bull market." He doubts the housing market will hit a bottom until 2010, by which time the economy will already be on the road to recovery.

The heavy selling that's been seen in recent weeks typically drives the faint-hearted out of the market, leaving only those committed to gains over the long term, says Bruce McCain, chief investment strategist at Key Private Bank (KEY) in Cleveland. But as was the case in the early 1930s, the challenges facing the financial system could end up being fairly benign or could turn out to be very serious. That will depend on whether the government policy response can avoid some of the mistakes made nearly 80 years ago. In the near term, McCain predicts stocks will try to rally before re-testing the lows from early October.
Some Expecting Yearend Rally

For signs of recovery, he says he would want to see selling volume drying up on any retest of the previous lows. If the market doesn't break to new lows, he says he would expect investor sentiment to improve and enable the market to begin an uptrend, but he thinks any progress in stock values will be rather slow and steady. "As long as we see that evolving and as long as the system doesn't start to fall apart more seriously at the economic level, we can define what the next year should look like," he says.

Some market strategists are predicting a yearend rally that could start as soon as early November, based on how oversold equities have gotten, but they don't expect any uptrend to be sustained beyond yearend with a longer and deeper-than-usual recession expected.

Barry Ritholtz, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Research & Analytics , describes the current stock market as a "plasma market," a reference to the abnormal state of matter once it's been superheated and the usual rules of physics give way to the rules of quantum mechanics. In the midst of a global credit freeze, all of the usual rules about market fundamentals, technical trading patterns, and what works when the markets are in defensive mode have ceased to hold true, according to Ritholtz. "It's a very different environment, so we're being cautious," he says. "The easy way to do that is to buy indexes, not individual names. That's the opposite of our usual approach. We're usually stock pickers."
Market Could Revisit Lows

Arnott at Research Affiliates says he's not ready to turn bullish on stocks yet but believes there will eventually be good opportunities in value sectors that have been bludgeoned, such as financial services. "We don't know which ones will be next on the chopping block, but we can say with confidence that with each failure, the competitive landscape improves," he says.

Regardless of what the government's quarterly economic growth reports say, Ritholtz believes the U.S. has been in a fairly mild recession for a year, one that is already priced into stocks. "What we don't know is whether a worse recession is priced into stocks," he says. The market could revisit the lows from early October and possibly break through them, but he's betting on a broad-based rally that could take the S&P 500 index up 10% to 15% with very little stimulation.

William Nobrega, managing partner of the Conrad Group, an investment advisory firm in Miami, believes that heavy equipment makers such as Caterpillar (CAT) and Deere (DE) will do well, due to strong foreign sales and impending infrastructure investments in the U.S. that could total as much as $150 billion in 2009 alone. Renewable energy outfits like Johnson Controls (JCI) and environmental-services companies like Waste Management (WMI) are also good bets, he says.
Lack of Visibility

Manny Govil, a fund manager at San Francisco-based RS Investments who manages the $700 million RS Large-Cap Alpha Fund (called the RS Core Equity Fund until Oct. 15) is one of the few who see lots of potential in equities specifically because of the lack of visibility about the direction of the economy and the strength of the financial system. But he's focusing on individual names rather than broad sectors. The main reason he's steering clear of traditionally defensive sectors such as consumer staples: The valuations aren't low enough to suggest sufficient expansion once the economy begins to recover. He's looking for companies that are as likely to hold up well during an economic downturn as perform well once a recovery begins.

His favorite pick right now is McDonald's (MCD), whose 2008 earnings are expected to grow between 15% and 20% from last year and between 5% and 10% in 2009, while profitability for most companies is declining. He sees the fast-food giant benefiting from a drop in commodity prices, solid same-store sales growth, and an increase in franchisee-owned stores. "Outside the U.S., they've been selling company-owned stores to local entrepreneurs, who can generally market things better because they're better tied into the local markets," he says. And the profit margins on franchise stores, which give a percentage of earnings to the company, tend to be higher than for company-owned stores, he adds.

He also likes Republic Services (RSG), the third-largest trash hauling company in the U.S., but in his view the best managed among the big three. Trash collectors are more resilient than normal cyclical companies and don't rely on a robust economy, and have some pricing power due to the consolidation that's taken place in the past 20 years. Republic will also benefit from lower fuel prices and may garner cost savings as a result of a recent merger, according to to Govil.
"Bargains for Patient Investors"

Consumer staple stocks such as Procter & Gamble (PG) and Coca-Cola (KO) are attractive investments, not only for their fairly low valuations but their annual dividend growth, says Tom McManus, chief investment strategist at Wachovia Securities (WB) in St. Louis. Procter & Gamble, trading at nearly 13.7 times next year's earnings, is down 17% on the year and has held up compared with stocks that are down as much as 50% to 70%, he says. McManus says P&G's 6.2% dividend yield doesn't sound that impressive compared to other high-yielding stocks, but the company has boosted its annual cash payout an average of 12% over the last five years, thanks to profit growth driven by its focus on international markets. Coke is selling at 13.6 times estimated 2009 earnings and its annual dividend has grown by an average of 11.5% over the last five years.

"These are not tremendous bargains but they're bargains for patient investors who will take advantage of the fact that the broad market is down but the economy hasn't put extreme pressure on these companies," says McManus.

But those who aren't so confident about what the future holds may prefer to take a tip from Laszlo Birinyi, president of Birinyi Associates, in Westport, Conn., who says, "If you make any significant moves [within the next year], you're either guessing or hoping."

Given how quickly markets can change direction, he suggests that people be a little more aggressive in taking profits on stocks they currently own while staying in positions by buying back shares of those same stocks on dips. "You don't want to be out of the market," he says.