I’d love to claim that I had properly timed the market but that was not the case. There were two primary factors 1. My uncle’s REIT, I invest with people that are sharp and I can trust 2. I saw the broader indicators leading towards an adjustment. Because of these circumstances, my annualized time series doesn’t show any down years. I do respect Warren Buffet but recommend that you go straight to the source: The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham.
Arbs are great vehicles but still too exotic for me. I try to keep my investments pretty simple and have not used any special algorithms for calibrating the returns - mostly because of the lack of time to manage them well. I actually started shifting to the property markets after seeing how well the REIT was doing. So far, the cash flows have been strong, and I have started debt repayment at an accelerated pace for the European properties (no tax advantages for me).
2010 should be an interesting year, I don’t see a true recovery because the fundamentals are still off balance (including debt/exotics etc). Maybe I am cynical because of the day job, but I don’t believe that the most efficient allocation of capital is occurring at this point.