It has been an amazing summer with stocks putting together an impressive rally with gains of 10-20% in the last six months. If you look below, the gains are even more impressive – anywhere between 40-50% in different broad market indices.

So is it too good to be true? Maybe.

 On one hand it is a sort of relief that markets are finally going up after such a long period of continous stream of bad news. On the other it seems like market is playing head-games with us and will only lead to more damage to our portfolios and retirement plans. All in all, it is a very jittery situation for most of the investors.

I am also one of those jittery investors but it has not prevented me from jumping back into the market. It is not that I don’t believe that market is not going to go back down in the near future, but I am concentrating on the long term. Market seems to be perfectly poised for a short term correction after such an impressive rally but this correction will only provide me another opportunity to load up on stocks.

I am optimistic that economy is showing some signs of recovery (such as better than expected jobless rates) and as we start hearing more good news, the stock market will only go up further. I am not invested only until the end of the year but for the rest of my life and that is why I am not too worried about what the YE 2009 value of S&P 500 Index would look like.  All I believe is that economy is finally showing signs of life and it bodes well for my allocation to stocks.