I recently wrote about how September is historically the worst month for stocks, and that this September, there are more reason than ever to expect a sell-off. Some of those reasons include a potential disappointment from the Federal Reserve on the stimulus front, continued economic slowing in China, Europe’s recession, the uncertainty of the presidential election and the looming fiscal cliff.#-ad_banner-#

On Thursday, Sept. 6, we saw one big threat to the markets essentially taken off the table when the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a bond-buying plan to lower struggling euro zone countries’ borrowing costs. ECB President Mario Draghi called the widely anticipated move a “fully effective backstop.” This backstop prompted the markets to surge more than 2% in Thursday trade, with the Dow rallying some 250 points in the session.

Now, I like a big rally just as much as the next guy, and I was pleased that the ECB finally made good on past promises to come through with a concrete bond-buying program. And though stocks surged Thursday, I still suspect that we could see some selling off current levels in the weeks to come.

However, even if we don’t get a broad market sell-off consistent with the historic September slump, there are still stocks, and especially bonds, that don’t belong in your portfolio any longer. Here are three investments to sell now:

1. Intel (Nasdaq: INTC)
If you’ve owned big-cap technology stocks this year, and especially if you’ve owned a basket of Nasdaq 100 stocks such as the PowerShares QQQ Trust (NYSE: QQQ), you’ve likely done very well. The Qs are up about 22% year-to-date, but not all of its biggest components have shared in the upside. Shareholders of Intel Corp. know this quite well, as the chipmaker’s shares are down about 1.2% so far in 2012.

Today, the company issued a drastically reduced fiscal third-quarter sales forecast citing a “challenging macroeconomic environment” that put a damper on PC demand worldwide.

Intel now expects to see third-quarter revenue of $12.9 billion to $13.5 billion, well below its previous forecast for revenue of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion. The disappointing guidance also is well below the $14.2 billion Wall Street was expecting. And the company withdrew its full-year guidance, a move that signals extreme uncertainty, and that has justly caused shares to plunge.

If you own INTC, now is the time to reboot and sell.

2. Pfizer (NYSE: PFE)
Drugmaker Pfizer is a giant of a company that has generated giant profits off of its cholesterol-reducing cash cow Lipitor. Unfortunately, the company’s U.S. patent has expired, and the loss of that exclusivity has really impacted its business.

In May, Pfizer reported a 19% drop in earnings from $2.22 billion to $1.79 billion during fiscal Q1, and not surprisingly, the company said results were heavily impacted by the loss of the Lipitor patent.

Now to be certain, Pfizer isn’t lying down and playing dead. The company has introduced several new popular drugs, including the pain relief medication Lyrica, and the bacterial infection vaccine Prevnar. But despite a strong start to these new drugs, there is still nothing yet that’s replaced Lipitor’s revenue stream, and nothing is likely to do so in the near future.

If you own PFE, now is the time to sell and move on to healthier stocks. 

3. Long-Term Treasury Bonds
Treasury bonds have been one area of the market that’s seen plenty of capital inflows, particularly during the past six months. The uncertainty in Europe prompted a lot of money to seek shelter in what is still the safest place to wait out a fiscal storm, and that’s long-term debt issued by the United States.

On Thursday, bond prices fell as European investors pulled money out of Treasuries and put it back into euro area bonds, and into so-called “risk on” equities, hence the big surge we saw in U.S. markets. After the ECB announcement, it appears to me as though this once-blazing sector is forming a top, and that the buying fuel in bonds has just about been exhausted.

Action to Take –> That means if you own long-term Treasury bonds in an ETF such as the iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (NYSE: TLT), then a widely held proxy for the longest maturity U.S. government debt, you should sell those holdings now.

In fact, if we start to see an increase in the sector sell-off, then it could be time to short bonds via an ETF such as the ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (NYSE: TBT), a fund that moves twice as fast in the opposite direction as TLT.