Dear Mr. Berko:

Dear H.T.:

I think your brokester must have been taking stupid pills and swallowed the whole bottle that morning. How could this schlump in good conscience recommend the SunAmerica Small-Cap Growth Fund (SGWAX-$9.59)?

This fund has performed very poorly. But SGWAX will perform well for the broker, paying him a sweet 5.75 percent ($6,100) on your $107,000 purchase. For the privilege of paying his commission, you get a 13-week performance of -16 percent, a three-year performance of -13 percent and a five-year performance of -12 percent. Certainly this boy could have presented some of SunAmerica’s better funds.

But who really knows? You and that numbskull could be right. There are still quite a few investors out there who remain convinced that the Dow Jones industrial average will be higher at the end of 2011 than at the beginning. They also believe that during the coming few years, the Dow will continue higher and reach record highs.

I call these people stupids.

If these stupids are correct, then I may seriously consider applying for monkhood at a monastery in Sikkim. But all the signs of a declining Dow have been waving in the face of investors for more than a year – repeated efforts at “quantitative easing” notwithstanding.

Still, the brightest boob-heads at Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and elsewhere did not want to tell investors they believed the market could tank a couple of thousand points. That would be bad for business.

However, on the very outside chance that these stupids are correct and the market does end higher in December than it began in January, the following list of pale-blue chips may be good short-term investments. Each pays a decent dividend, has a low payout ratio, earns more than twice its dividend and has superior long-term potential.

Raytheon Co. (RTN-$43.27) is in the defense electronics business and yields 4 percent. ConocoPhillips (COP-$70.27) is the third-largest integrated U.S. oil company and yields 3.7 percent. Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT-$76.43) is in aeronautics, systems integration and military aircraft and yields 5.2 percent. Intel Corp. (INTC-$24.34) is the world’s largest chip-maker and yields 3.5 percent. Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PEG-$33.44) is a worldwide electric and gas company and yields 4.1 percent. Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY-$38.94) is a world-leading pharmaceutical company with a 5 percent dividend. Finally, Entergy Corp. (ETR-$67.63) is an integrated electric utility with a dividend yielding 4.9 percent.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or email him at malber@adelphia.net. ©2011 Creators.com