<p>Give your thoughts on various investments, non-investments, and how to spend/save your money wisely.</p>
<p>My take? CDs suck. The real return's too low to put more than 10% of your cash into them. I'd not put any more than 5 or 7% into a CD until I start hitting my 50s or 60s and am thinking about annuities.</p>
<p>But that's just me.</p>
<p>Maybe bonds...? The stock market's tanking, now's not the time to go in. I think investment-grade bonds with A ratings or something like that pay like 7-8%, I think. Or you could go into junk bonds, about 20-ish%, I think. But they all have some default risk.</p>
<p>If you've got more than $100,000 to invest, find a financial advisor (who is paid by the hour or as a % of assets, not according to how much trading you do), and do what he tells you.</p>
<p>These are people whose careers are devoted to understanding this stuff.</p>
<p>My career is devoted to other things entirely.</p>
<p>The market's tanking right now, but lifetime returns on a properly diversified stock portfolio should still be 12%. Though it might pay to wait for some lows on some stocks.</p>
<p>I was taught to generally put only 10 to 15% in bonds, but maybe someone else can give a good reason to go higher.</p>
<p>As far as equities are concerned (5-10 year time frame):</p>
<p>Bullish:
Energy/Commodities
Tech/Internet
Banking/Finance</p>
<p>Bearish:
Transport
Retail
Defense
Housing (who isn't?)</p>