If you are looking for the best investments for 2011, you should look at the stock market. It’s always been the place to get the best return on investments for most investors over time. Now you can get in while it’s still cheap.
There are a lot of bargains out there still. Many experts are recommending investments that track broad market indices. That is because they believe that with the overall economy, the stock market as a whole will rise in value.
Examples of these types of investments would be the SPDR S&P 500, which is an ETF that tracks the S&P 500 composite index. This way, you are essentially investing in the market’s 500 most influential companies.
You can also invest in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund, which you can also find in the form of an ETF. This index fund would include small and mid cap stocks, making it a little more broad than the SPDR S&P 500 ETF.
You’ll also want to look at large cap stocks that have a lot of their revenues coming from emerging markets. The reason is simple. These economies will grow faster than the developed world, creating tons of revenue generating opportunities for large multinational corporations that have the resources to leverage them.
There is a growing business environment and a growing middle class. Both are great for any company that can step in a provide the new goods and services these new developing economies need.
Companies that do a lot of business in emerging economies are already seeing better than expected earnings for the first quarter of 2011. Stocks like IBM, Intel and 3M, all of which attribute these developing economies as a big portion of their earnings growth, have beat market expectations so far this year.
