Tacoma News Tribune – Changes in winning and losing investments have come so swiftly of late that you might not have realized your favorite approach has backfired lately.<\/p>\n
International funds – the hot funds of the last few years – have turned more disappointing than U.S. stock funds. Gold has lost its luster or, more precisely, more than $200 since reaching more than $1,000 an ounce a few months ago. Oil is in a bear market – a decline of 20 percent or more. Small-cap funds, which typically would be shunned during rough economic times, have been on a roll.<\/p>\n
The last few weeks have shown why financial planners try to discourage clients from loading up on a few winners while discarding everything else. They know that changes in cycles can come quickly, and without warning, turning winners into losers and vice versa.<\/p>\n
Many analysts are confessing their surprise at the twists of the last few weeks. It now appears that the globe is not immune from U.S. economic problems, although that was a favorite theory until a couple of months ago. <\/p>\n