Bet on the middle. Stock investors can help themselves if they count on extremes always swinging back to the middle.

What this means is that, like politics, the extremes in market and economic cycles get most of the attention.

This attention can be easily confused with importance.

Just as the summer Olympics are often a question of balance and coordination, you should keep your stock portfolio in top shape. Many investors may find, thanks to a tanking market, their portfolio out of balance. When the market is moving strongly in one direction, either up or down, you may find your asset allocation plans in shambles. The ratio of your stocks to bonds may not be what you started with this time in 2007. You may also find that certain stocks (financials, for example) may be down more than the other stocks in your portfolio. While you don’t want to make radical changes in this volatile market, you may want to tweak selective holdings to nudge your portfolio back to where you want it.