Gold is down 20%, Dollar remains flat at an index of 80 - 81.

And finally, to those that say you can't make money in expensive markets, look at the long term slope of the price index chart for SF and NY compared to the nation ... and that is a trend shown to hold strong all the way back to the 80s on the chart.

I can of course invest that into index funds and build even more wealth and go party Justin Bieber style, lol. 

@Nikhil Sharma you should google REIT index funds - vanguard, fidelity, iShares - they are all good places to start.Also, if you are looking for a stock investment advise, you'll be better off going to a certified financial planner rather than asking on a forum.

This is not a passive investment like making automatic monthly deposits into an index fund for long-term stock investing and then going to spend time with your family.

They are not the indicators that you would use to evaluate whether an investment is a good or a bad buy.Government reports and indexes will provide the information you have asked for. 

Related to crime Greensboro score a 5 on the Crime Index (scored out of 100, 100 being the safest) which isn't a great look.

However, if you look back to 2008, REIT's got crushed and so did their dividends.If you look at the REIT Index and the dividend history, you will notice that they just quit paying dividends after the financial collapse in late 2008.

If there would be two investments, generating both 10% IRR, one can have initial investment of $10K and one $100K and you can't tell just from looking at IRR.For this reason also Profitability Index is a good calculation, in my opinion.Profitability index = (Present Value of Future cash flows) / Initial investmentAnyway, you are right as well that calculations is one thing, but then you have to access the investment with common sense and guts to make the final decision.

So far what I've considered are the following:Stock Market, but even with an ETF or index fund I could withdraw at a 10-20% lossConsidered bonds, but risk/reward isn't really worth it since they could as well drop 10% in the short termCD for 12 months @ 1.5%Currently, I have my Emergency fund + the extra money getting 1% interest.