How do you park your cash till it's time?

i would stick with your current strategy. as you say---preservation of capital is the key these days.

You can invest your cash with me. I provide my clients with a 12% annual return.

that's actually pretty damn funny.

MBB is an etf of unlevered Agency MBS, yields around 5%.

More risk but much more reward: Agency mortgage REITs. Buy now and you will collect 15-20% cash dividends by year end, and the stock prices are likely to be where they are or higher, so potential total return of 30% or so without any credit risk. I like CMO and HTS the best, NLY is the biggest and looks good too.

ING Direct

modern - that's the silliest comment ever.

http://us.ishares.com/product_info/fund/overview/MBB.htm

MBB has a yield of about 3%. If rates for mortgages rise through the year, this will destroy this fund.

February was a short month (fewer days), the distribution should be slightly higher next month. That said, it was 5% when I bought it at 99-100, now it is lower as the price moved up. So I stand corrected, the yield is lower than last I looked.

But there is alsmost zero chance the rates for conventional mortgages move up much this year, as the Fed is buying MBS to keep them low. So I stand by my statment that it is a safe place to park cash for a while at better than MM rates.

So I am basically at my wits end. I had a nice chunk of change, after selling a coop in 2006, as a down payment on a new investment property. I spread the money in conservative no-load mutual funds. Hahahaha, not conservative enough. Down 40% when I read on street easy not to put money in stocks if I need it in less than 5 years. D'oh! So I cash out at 6700. (I think I single handedly caused the recent rally by cashing out.)

So last week I am doing a job at a company that basically identifies (and tries to mitigate/avoid) future risk. I ask a guy that seems quite smart if a devalued dollar is the next shoe to fall. He says yeah; not this year, not next year, but in three to five years it could be a *huge* economic crisis.

So the question remains, how the f*ck do I hang on to my money! Aaaargh, so frustrated.

TIPS.

Returns aren't fantastic, but you're talking low risk.

"i would stick with your current strategy. as you say---preservation of capital is the key these days."

I hope HT1 didn't follow your advice - he would have been up 40%...

tips via treasury direct

Man, I hope everyone who was smart enough to get out of the market at the top last year was smart enough to jump in 4 months ago. Anything HY is killing it this year - +35%..

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aXQj6Sb4graY

Embarrassed to say I thought Alpine's comment was very very funny.

Vanguard money market, the most conservative fund they'll let you buy (they close funds from time to time).

{Manhattan real estate agent.}