The higher the market goes the more confusing are the "experts". In the September 14 issue of Investor's Business Daily newspaper we find the great prognosticators such as:

Sheldon Jacobs, editor of No-Load Fund Investor newsletter quoted that he is recommending having more cash in your portfolio.

Louis Navallier, manager of three aggressive mutual funds, remains very bullish. He says now is the time to load up on tech stocks.

John Wallace, another mutual fund maven now has become positive toward small-cap stocks for his mutual fund.

Any time you need someone to agree or disagree with you on anything in the stock market you can find a Wall Street "expert" who will agree with you. There is an old saying "The market climbs a wall of worry" and the higher it goes the more worriers there are. Yes, it is scary, but you have to make your own decisions and you can't listen to those people because if you check their past records you will find they have made some real "boo-boos". The experts are not as expert as they would like you to think.

Is there any way to figure out the stock market so you can have a good return on your money and still sleep at night? Yes, there is. You listen to the only "expert" you will ever have to. That is the market itself. And how do you do that? It is not as complicated as they would have you believe. Let me show you how simple it really is.

The first thing you need to know is if the market is going up or down. Right? You need a simple indicator. The plain vanilla one I recommend to the non-sophisticated investor is the S&P500 Index. Any time the S&P500 daily close is above its 200-day moving average the market is going up. When it falls below sell everything and go to cash. How simple can you get? You will find these numbers published every day in Investor's Business Daily.

Even though I am considered a professional trader (17 years an exchange member and floor trader) I no longer try to pick individual stocks. It is just too much work so I let other experts do it for me - FREE. I only buy no-load mutual funds that are in the top performing (never mind the category) 1% of all funds and are outperforming the S&P500 Index for the past 12 months. Not 3 years, not 5 years.

Don't get carried away with trading. The simple plan is watch the S&P500 Index and only look at your mutual funds once a month to be sure they remain in the top category. You will beat all the "experts".