If I had some cash...

So I've been watching the market lately, I know everyone thinks "What a horrible time for investors", but let me tell you... If I had some cash...

I'd buy.

Why? Because a lot stocks right now are sitting at historic lows. Since I started my portfolio two and half years ago, I've been watching some pretty strong stocks do some pretty strange things. I'm sure people remember the "Shanghai Slip" in February of '07 when some computer glitches in China made the markets skip a beat for a day. A lot of US stocks slid hard and fast hitting 52-week lows in one day, but the Chinese stocks stopped dropping after the 10% cap (in China stocks can only move up or down 10% per day). This is when I bought in Apple, Inc (NYSE:AAPL) at around $85/share. As of today, Apple sits at around $90/share. Outside of these recent market malfunctions, the company is sound. Their product line lures brand loyalty like no other and every year they consistently grab a larger share of the market and beat earnings projections (although to be fair, their earnings estimates are rather conservative in comparison to the company's dynamic expansion in recent years). Two weeks ago I sold my shares of Apple at $140/share, but until six months ago their stock was rated by various companies to have a value of approximately $200/share and even peaked at $212/share (knew I should've sold then...). My point: low is the best time to buy; and, if the percentage gained is high enough to make a nice profit, sell! I made approximately 60% profit and could've made more had I been willing to settle with 110% profit six months ago.

Other stocks that I've watched crawl to speculative lows recently are a few multinational companies I invested in earlier (and when I say invested I mean made money from trading). One of them is iShares Trust FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Fund (NYSE:FXI). Although now almost all the charts I can find show that FXI never hit over $200, I found my account history online and know for a fact I sold my shares at $200/share in October 2007. In February I bought them at $104/share. Now FXI is $28/share and from what I can see FXI's top 10 holdings are all strong companies in China (Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Mobile, China Construction Bank, CNOOC, China Unicom, etc.) They list 25% holdings in IT, 25% in Manufacturing, and almost 50% in Financial Services. Although the United States' financial system is in shambles right now, I can say that if any country is in a decent position with finances-- it's China (with over one trillion dollars in federal reserves in 2006 and a savings rate of approximately 30% of houshold income). The Chinese financial system is not suffering from a lack of liquidity like the United States, but unfortunately investor confidence is just as low here. Many people I've talked to have lost a lot of money on the open market, real estate prices are still falling from mad speculation and gross profiteering; however, the companies listed on FXI's top 10 are still showing signs of successful growth! If I had to guess, in a few months FXI will tack a gain of at least 50% or $42/share (which is comparable to August's share price).

I'll post some information on OTCBB's later in my next post... "If I had $1,000 to day-trade"