Time for Investors to Pick Up the Garbage Disposal Companies

With all of the major indices now in bear market territory it seems as though the best way for a long investor to play this market is to avoid the losing stocks and switch into the winners. I sometimes liken investing to gambling, but the advantage of investing over gambling is that you can change your bet at any time. Imagine if you were playing blackjack only to find that you had a very weak hand. But in this particular game of blackjack you can swap cards with the person sitting next to you and as luck would have it, that person has a very strong hand that looks very likely to win. Now, you could always risk going bust and take another card to try to strengthen your hand, but given the option virtually any gambler would take the bet that is closer to a sure thing. Unfortunately, when gambling a player doesn't have the option to change his/her hand, but an investor can change investments at any time.

So, my question to all of the investors out there is simple. Would you rather risk your money in the struggling industries of the market or would you like to put your money in an industry that is actually making money in 2008? Or for those of you who enjoyed my gambling analogy above, would you rather hold the cards that lose more often than not or the cards that have won more than not?