Volatility in stocks making you antsy once again? Wondering if you should pull an itchy trigger finger and sell?

In truth, cash is going to make its way back into stocks, bonds commodities, currencies… anything… as long as borrowing costs are so low. So you can expect dip-buying on pullbacks, corrections and dips for 6-9 more months.

Meredith Whitney may be more bearish than she’s been in a year. Yet, stock investors keep pushing all major sectors and all key market barometers upward.

Sure, there are a number of noteworthy areas of trepidation. Financial stocks have not hit new 52-week highs in more than a month. Small-caps have been underachieving. And Market Vectors Vietnam (VNM) has corrected 11% from highs reached on 10/15/09, a troublesome sign for frontier market investments.

The current cyclical bull market has been led by technology and materials. Granted, the turnaround in financial stocks and a weak U.S. dollar fanned the flames. Yet it was genuine value in prominent tech companies as well as China’s government-stimulated pursuit of resources that fired up the global economy.

Although there have been a few hiccups in the 8-month rally — a 7% decline in June/July for the overall U.S. market and a 5% drop in October/November — a popular trading tool has deftly identified buying opportunities. Specifically, with the long-term trend of the market being bullish, “oversold” Relative Strength (RSI) figures have marked profitable entry points.

Since the U.S. dollar is experiencing an intermediate-term downtrend, one that may certainly last another 6-9 months, one is likely to profit from emerging market ETF exposure. In particular, country ETFs like Brazil (EWZ) and Russia (RSX) have benefited enormously from strength in their respective currencies — the “real” and the “ruble.”

To continue industrializing, growing and exporting, however, these relative newcomers on the world economic scene cannot afford to see their currencies climb unabated. With so much riding on their exports, Brazil and Russia require some leveling off on the “real” and the “ruble.” Otherwise, fewer countries will be able to afford to import the goods and resources.

The iShares DJ Telecom Fund (IYZ) has been one of the weaker performers over the last 6 months. Indeed, it’s been a bit of an underachiever throughout 2009 with a 14.3% total return. Vanguard Telecom (VOX) has been a little stronger with a total YTD return of 18.4%.

In any other year, one might be thrilled by the double-digit percentages. Yet the vast majority of sector investments have outpaced telecom. Even the stock ETF benchmarks — S&P 500 (SPY) , Nasdaq 100 (QQQQ), Dow (DIA) — have all experienced 21%+ through 11/16.

Remember the day when an exchange-traded fund was as easy to grasp as the sunshine is bright? No longer!

On Monday, 11/16/09, iShares launched the Diversified Alternatives Trust (ALT). Its stated objective? Well… that’s too long for a gifted speaker to say aloud on a single breath of air. (Go ahead… try it for yourself!)

Not a lot of folks are talking about it, but financial ETFs are struggling. While the “dollar carry trade” has encouraged investors to push big time benchmarks to 52-week highs, the SPDR Select Financial Fund (XLF) is still -6.8% below its closing high from 1 month ago.

Consider the Dow Diamonds Trust (DIA), the S&P 500 SPDR Trust (SPY) and the Nasdaq 100 proxy, the Powershares (QQQQ). Each finished the 11/12/09 week at new peaks or within spitting distance.

The WisdomTree Chinese Yuan Fund (CYB) has been waiting for a day like November 11, 2009. Rather than continue pegging its currency to the U.S. dollar ad infinitum, China’s Central Bank announced “Following the principles of initiative, controllability and gradualism, with reference to international capital flows and changes in major currencies, we will improve the yuan exchange-rate formation mechanism.”

Translation? The Chinese aren’t willing to let their currency go down with the dollar ship.

Most people believe that gold only goes up in bad economic times… as a hedge against an inflationary recession, a deflationary depression or protection against dollar devaluation. In the current uncertainty, gold seems to fit the bill perfectly.

However, Blackrock’s Doll explains that gold actually performs best in times when the global economy is recovering and when central bank policies are stimulative. Both the recent Fed meeting and the G-20 Summit confirmed that stimulus is going to continue, a further tailwind for gold investing.

The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) hit a brand new high yesterday. Indeed, the commodity is outperforming the S&P 500 in 2009.

Yet some investors confuse Commodity ETFs — investments that offer exposure to the spot price of a physical substance — and Hard Asset ETFs. The latter look to gain exposure to “stuff” by investing in a basket of commodity companies rather than investing in the physical commodity itself.

Once again, the Dow is hitting new highs. I guess that means Jim Cramer’s prognostication that we had seen the highs for the year missed the mark.

You may recall, the CNBC eccentric declared his view that an official 7% decline had just started on 10/28/09. The disingenuous part was… major benchmark ETFs like the the PowerShares Nasdaq 100 (QQQQ), the S&P 500 SPDR Trust (SPY) and Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) were already down more than 5% from a 10/19/09 peak.

Who doesn’t appreciate the hard work and research that comes from the Bespoke Group? The data that Bespoke compiles always stimulates my brain cells… even when I disagree with the interpretation of the info presented.

For instance, last month I called out Bespoke for a simplistic observation that China had gone from first place to last place of the 4 BRIC nations on year-to-date performance through 9/30/2009. I wrote:

It’s easy to think about South Korea. Warren Buffett essentially called Korea’s POSCO the best steelmaker in the world. What’s more, South Koreans have turned a corner on everything from electronics (Samsung) to phones (LG Group) to automobiles (Hyundai).

Few investors have failed to express interest in the “China miracle.” Not only is its economy growing at a torrid 9%, but the China 25 Fund’s (FXI) 155% 5-year total return is nearly unmatched by any diversifed equity investment.

I track portfolios using software on my computer network and I use web-based applications. I even use simple tools like Yahoo Finance for instantaneous access to data.

Yet Yahoo Finance has an inexplicable quirk when it comes to the SPDR Barclays Capital Convertible Bond Fund (CWB). If you set up a portfolio with CWB in it, you’ll often get a message, “No Such Ticker Symbol.” It’s been that way for 6 solid months, ever since the fund’s inception.

Corporate resilience has been rather amazing. Bottom-line, top-line… who really thinks that companies aren’t hanging tough?

Apparently, with so many corporations doing markedly better, some market-watchers fear that the Fed may show too much faith in the overall economy’s standing. That is, would the Fed prepare a statement that hinted at a foreseeable end to near-zero short-term rates?

Is there ever really a perfect middle ground on risk? Former “Junk Bond King,” Michale Milken, always wanted you to think so.

(Of course, Mr. Milken wound up with a 10-year sentence for securities fraud. And the SEC permanently barred him from the securities industry.)

When the credit collapse gripped the entire world, it was the Emerging Market ETFs that recovered before their developed world counterparts. In fact, as often as everyone (myself included) discusses the “March lows,” emerging markets actually hit rock bottom in November 2008 and hit “higher lows” in March 2009.

The rest, as they say, is history. Emerging Market ETFs have jumped straight into the stratosphere and have significantly out-hustled U.S., Europe and Japan ETF investments.

The week before last, the market was poised to go 8 for 8; that is, stocks hadn’t lost ground since February of ‘09.

Then came the late October spook-fest. The S&P 500 SPDR Trust (SPY) lost -4.2% last week alone, while the the PowerShares Nasdaq 100 (QQQQ) shed -5.0%.

For 5 trading days, the U.S. dollar was in strong demand. And for 5 days, stocks and commodities were punished mercilessly.

Consider just how quickly the sentiment shifted towards buying the U.S. dollar. The PowerShares DB Dollar Bullish Fund (UUP) had quietly gone about losing ground on a fairly regular basis for months; the exchange-traded fund typically traded around 2 million shares a day.