Five Awful Investments to Avoid in 2011
Timeshares, Lottey Tickets, and Life Insurance Investments. Buyer beware.
Getting Ready for Tax Season
Here are a few tips to help you get ready for tax season:
Economic Growth and Market Performance
Economic growth and stock market performance are not related. The market is a great equalizer.
Tips on How to Focus
Here are some thoughts on How to Focus from http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/ website:
The Twelve Pillars of Investing Wisdom
It seems in the world of investing, the more things change the more things stay the same. I recently stumbled across a speech given in 2001 by John C. Bogle, Founder of The Vanguard Group, where he shared twelve sensible guidelines to successful investing.
45 Lessons
This is something we should all read at least once a week. It was written By Regina Brett, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio. When she turned 90 years old, she wrote the 45 lessons life taught her to celebrate growing older. It was her most-requested column:
Father of Modern Finance Weighs In
Eugene Fama, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, was internviewd about the recent financial crisis, capitalism, efficent markets and financial regulatory reform. The video is worth watching to get past the hype and back to the basics.
How High Can the Retirement Age Go?
How high can or should the retirement age go, and should it be tied to increases in life expectancy? What will changes in retirement patterns mean for the United States, compared with Western Europe?
Words to Invest By
Raise your right hand and repeat after me. "An Investor's Manifesto":
Source: Kiplinger By Knight Kiplinger June 2009
I am an investor. I do not trade my assets frequently. That's speculation, not investing.
I am also a saver, fueling my investments with continuous savings from current income.
I know that every kind of asset entails risk -- even cash, which can be eroded by inflation.
I know that higher returns entail higher risk, in every kind of asset.
I accept those risks, but I mitigate them by owning a diversity of assets.
I regard my home as a place to live, not as an investment. It is not a substitute for retirement savings.
I have an investment plan and a plan for asset allocation, in consultation with a financial adviser.
I invest regular amounts every month, in both rising and falling markets. I know I can not gauge market tops and bottoms. If I receive a windfall -- a bonus, bequest or gift -- I gradually feed it into my regular investment mix.
I don't pour more money into hot markets nor completely cash out of plunging markets.
I spread my investments among several asset classes, in a mix fitting my age and risk tolerance.
I force myself to sell high and buy low by periodic rebalancing-just what is temperamentally difficult for most investors to do.
I know that stocks are risky in the short run, so I hold in equities no money for which I have a likely need in the next three years.
But stocks are not too risky in the long run. They have outperformed all other commonly traded assets over periods of 15 years and longer.
Foreign stocks account for at least 15% of my stock allocation. I believe that developing economies will enjoy much higher growth than the U.S. in the decades ahead.
I never borrow against my stocks. Margin calls could force me to sell good assets at a bad time.
I stick with my game plan. I do not check the value of my investments every day or even every week.
I try to keep my cool when other folks are losing theirs.
I remind myself often: I am an investor.