ETF's (exchange traded funds) are all the rage on Wall Street. They've seemingly eliminated the need to be a stock picker. Just choose a sector, buy the EFT, set it and forget it. But there's a problem. The number of publicly traded US stocks is down nearly 50 percent. Therefore, the breadth of the market and the stocks actually going up has been shrinking. We've seen many companies get bought out or merged out of existence. Since Sarbanes Oxley's passage during the Bush admin, the number of new issues has dramatically declined. When things do start heading south, ETF's will be the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire.