You Can't Go Broke Taking Profits

A common saying on Wall Street, and for good reason. Although the stock market has been acting very well in recent weeks and today's 200-point gain is a good start to this week, I am not going to be bashful about taking some chips off of the table for my clients and you shouldn't be either.

It is a contrarian move (not surprisingly, coming from me), as the market is breaking through upside support levels on a technical basis, but I want to have some cash on hand to make purchases during the next correction. When will that drop take place? I have no idea but it certainly will come. I would not be surprised if it was soon. After all, the S&P 500 has rallied from 666 in early March to 907 in early May, a gain of 36%. Still, we are up less than 1% for 2009.