Can you tell how much my financials have hurt me? The worst of it has been realty-related. Those investments are gone. I have proven yet again how much I don't understand realty and REITs. I will stay away for the moment and will only reconsider initiating a DCA back into them via OEFs once I think the subprime mess has finished blasting thru. Even after this mess, I still believe that about 10% of our portfolio should be invested in realty because of their general non-correlation to other investments --but not right now. 

Smallcap have also proven to be weaker than other areas of the markets, especially in the latter part of 2007. Since there is a "healthy" porportion of our personal retirement accounts in SV, this weakness has been yet another blow to the Whole Banana's closing 2007 return.

I took my annual New Year's Day trek to Barnes and Noble today to add to my investing library. I chose The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffett & George Soros. Maybe I'll learn something that *I* can implement to my advantage. Not their non-diversified approach, though. They have the acumen and the guts to make it work. I don't.

Regards,

Susan