In a retrospective look back at the past 10 years, New York Magazine posed the following hypothetical question: "If you had $100,000 to invest at the beginning of 1998 and were told that you had to invest all of the money in a single asset for the next 10 years, where should you have invested your money?"As it turns out, alternative asset classes such as art, real estate and commodities might have yielded more than investments in traditional assets such as stocks or bonds over the period 1998-2007. For example, a 1-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side in Manhattan that sold for $85,000 back in 1998 would now be worth $515,000. 3,298 shares of Apple stock that sold for $99,995 ten years ago would now be worth just shy of $2 million. But the best investment overall turned out to be a piece of artwork from Keith Haring that sold for $107,000 in 1998. The current value? Approximately $3 million, according to art dealers in New York.

Warren Buffett once noted that he buys companies "on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years." With that in mind, What do you think will be the perfect five-year investment over the period 2008-2012? (Just keep in mind that 2012 might be a tricky year for investors, given this disturbing bit of prognostication from our Mayan friends)

NOTE: This is neither a recommendation to buy nor sell any of the securities or assets mentioned above. Depending on your risk-reward profile and the overall composition of your portfolio, any of the investments mentioned above may or may not be suitable. Also, keep in mind the value of portfolio diversification. 

[image: Keith Haring's "Radiant Baby" on Wikipedia]

With housing prices, where they are, I'm sure certain parts of the country have real estate that is way undervalued. I couldn't necessarily tell you where, but that would be one thing to look at.

In this market, it would at best be a guess to say which stock would be a good choice. However, given the current food shortage, one might want to look into companies who provide/create it.

Another good arena may be alternative power companies and the like. With such a strong move towards the environment right now, and the shorter 5 year term you are looking at, I'm guessing there is some relatively unknown company that will explode once we start seeing the government, corporations and the general public all come together on what's good for the environment.

Sorry if this is general, but with such volatile market conditions and shaky bookkeeping practices, it's hard to be too specific.

Alternative energy!  Check out US Geothermal.  They just bought a Nevada plant for $17 million and just hopped on the American Stock Exchange.  I think the green industry, especially Geothermal energy is where to be.  Geothermal is  clean, efficient, sustainable, and zero emissions.  

Well, I am no good at picking stocks that go up.  So, I will pick something I believe will go down substantially in 5 years.   Yahoo and Microsoft.  I would short them all the way to the bank.