In talking about the wild swings up and down in the market, I've said that the most prudent approach to investing in the market right now is to look at buying stock and selling it for a small profit over a period of a couple days. For example, I bought the stock KKR Financial (KFN) at $7.83 and just sold it at $8.33 for a small 8% gain...like I said, a small profit but a profit nonetheless.
Now is not the time to try to "swing for the fences" and hit homeruns per se, but try to hit singles as there is still too much uncertainty out there.
