i consider following: 1. DOGS of DOW (O: you buy when the market is in reverse sentiment. @ this moment T [ AT& T] VZ [ VERIZON ] MO [ Philip Morris and Kraft food i believe] GM [ General Motors] MRK [ merck] C [ citi group ] fall in my investing group. I put certain amount of money in them and forget about them for a whole year. Next year same time i will come up with another 6. and sell all of these provided they are not in my list again. How do I choose them? 1. they have to be one of the 30 DOW components. 2. they are the DOGS of DOWS i.e. Dividend yeild is highest among the components. so far i have had 9% APY return [ ON AVERAGE] just by dividend income apart from CAPITAL APPRECIATION. I have been doing this for last 4 years (O: works for me .... RISK is like in the case of GM. might go through bankruptcy.. do you have stomach to lose money? if not handsome return (O:.. i lost some money on EK when it was dropped from DOW.. so shit happens but .. thats what stock market is all about hoina ta..... DISCLAIMER: performance of the past does not gurantee future RETURNS. and this is in no way to be considered as a financial advice. Please, consult your financial advisor. =================================================== as always, what do i know (O: