Energy prices are up, the real estate market is slowing and investors are adjusting their portfolios in kind. According to a TD Ameritrade survey, 51% of those surveyed are already invested in energy, and nearly all of them expect to move more assets into the sector within the next six months. The 1,000 survey respondents were nearly as conclusive about real estate: Fully two-thirds say the real estate market now belongs to buyers—a forecast of flat or depressed prices—while only 12% said that sellers in the real estate market still have the upper hand.

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Source: TD Ameritrade

While investors chase the energy sector's gains, they simultaneously appear to be less sensitive to the market's broader uncertainty. Reflecting a true buy-and-hold mentality, exactly 75% of investors have either maintained their positions in equities or added to them. In fact, the survey revealed that nearly 86% of all respondents expect the 2006 stock market to return gains in excess of 5%. A full one-third of those polled expect 2006 annual market gains to be well into the double digits.

But for those investors who actually sold stocks, the trend toward cash continues. Half of those divesting in the market put their assets into savings or money market accounts—the only choice that received a double-digit response—with mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and fixed-income polling well under 10%.

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Source: TD Ameritrade