Financials

Given the collapse in so many of the financials over the past several months, I wanted to take a step back and put the declines into perspective to see where we are.

Take a look at this 5 year chart for XLF - the Financial Select Spider exchange traded fund. It's down about 25% from the high back in May07. From the chart you can see the financials were trading at similar levels back three years ago in early 2004.

Of note is how steep the decline has been and the current steepness of the decline. I don't understand how to properly value financials, so any exposure I get would likely come through an ETF like this or through a similar mutual fund.

UPDATE: I opened a small position in NTRI Nutrisystems today after it showed some upside strength. It's been in a terrible freefall and even given growth concerns seems like it's worth a bet at 7X earnings.