Investment glass is half-full or half-empty?

Do you see the investment glass as half full or half empty? The over-reaching point is that the circumstances of today means that your attitude to performance will be critical. It means that there is no point in looking at today\'s \"recession opportunities\" if you don\'t understand performance mentality. If I have $10 million and my net worth (following a financial tsunami that hits everyone) is now down to $1 million, then my net worth has clearly fallen in absolute terms. However, if the rest of Singapore has a net worth of $500,000 per head and post the catastrophe, then I am something of a winner, being the richest person around. The main point to the half-empty-ites will be that you have to be in it to win it. Hoarding cash might have pangs of \"common sense,\" given the unusual and scary set of events in the global banking system. However, it is fairly important that the half-empty-ites see two issues: firstly that cash is a means of exchange and a store of value. This can only change if capitalism fundamentally fails and if this happens you don\'t need the cash anyway. It means that, even in the good times, banks will give you an interest rate that is near the rate of inflation as this way you benefit from sustaining your purchasing power (but not improving your purchasing power and therefore not assisting in wealth creation). Secondly, whatever short-term bank deposit rates get to, we need bank deposits to support the role of cash as a means of exchange. In the short term, there are a few banks that are \"buying cash\" by paying better than the rate offered by the lenders of last resort. Whatever the reason, the economy at large will need its cash to revert back to its normal role as a means of exchange otherwise the economy falls into barter and we are back to the end-of-capitalism scenario. Furthermore, for the half-empty-ites, it might be worth noting JK Gailbraith\'s comments in The Great Crash of 1929, in which he noted: \"Far more important than rate of interest and supply of credit is the mood.\" It is the mood that has fundamentally changed and this change is why, though governments may pump money into banks, share prices are still weak. It is why central banks are cutting rates but the London interbank offered rate is staying put. It is also why, despite public money to provide liquidity to markets to guarantee bond issues and even to take stakes in banks, stock markets continue to drop like so many stones. The message to the half-empty-ites is therefore complicated. Once again, you have to be in it to win it. But in what? You might be right to be (partially) out of markets, given the prevailing mood and temperament in the short term, but remember when the mood is good the upside is good. Also do remember that you can enter non-sentiment driven markets; but whatever you do limit the cash holdings to an amount that serves its principal role as a means of exchange and a store of value. Keeping everything in cash is one of the poorest decisions around.