Financial ETF's

[sawbonz]

When is a good time to start looking into these? The recession we are/were/aren't/weren't ever in seems to be ending, and we are supposedly on the backside of the foreclosure peak. Am I way off base in thinking this?

I don't really have the portfolio size (or risk tolerance) to put much money in individual stocks, but are there any specific ETF's I should be looking at? Should I avoid this segment completely?

Thanks

 

[Gardner Barnes]

You know, I think that Bank and Financial ETFs might be about 6 months out, but that is more of a hunch than anything.
REITs have done exceptionally well over the past 12 months and I think that banking and financial may be getting to the point that REITs were at 12-18 months ago - extremely oversold.

i-banks and brokers: iShares Dow Jones Broker Dealers Index Fund (IAI)
streetTracks KBW Bank Fund (KBE) Big banks, but something like 40% of it is in monsters like C, Wachovia, BoA, and Wells Fargo so be carefule here. 1 failure at C, for example, could be rough.


I am tempted to play the other side of the oil game with DUG but in a bubble like we are seeing in petro stocks, you never know how far it will go before it (oil) crashes.

 

[Lone Star]

FYI -- the ETFs I am in are up ~7% over the past six months.

DIA, EFA, IXN, IYH, IYK