The 100 Things I've Learned in Investing

Some excellent advice from Anand Chokkavelu, CFA

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/06/29/the-100-things-ive-learned-in-investing.aspx#.T_q242jDldw

If you only read one point, read the first one! "1. Most of this list is dedicated to insight on beating the market, but know this: It's darn hard to beat the market. Ninety-nine percent of people are best served steadily buying and holding low-cost index funds at the core of their portfolios -- and I may be understating that 99% figure."

Global investing trap: Economic growth as red herring

First of a three-part series on misconceptions about international investing.

It seems a simple proposition: If you had a choice between investing in a country with an economy that promises rapid growth, or investing in one with flat or stagnant growth—such as the two economies depicted in the chart showing gross domestic product (GDP) growth —which would you choose?

Is "Buy and Hold" really the way to go?

...But if there are no legitimate public winning strategies, if instead it's a fair market and everyone has the same opportunity for success, how can some people become multimillionaires while others lose their money? That can't be because of chance, can it?

Well, as a matter of fact, yes, investment success can and does result from pure chance, and stories of investment success are much more likely to result from chance than genius.

Because everyone is trying to outwit everyone else in unpredictable ways, the stock market is much more a random process than a moral drama with predictable winners and losers. But even though the market doesn't (and cannot) reward investment ingenuity, it does pay attention to chance factors.


Read the full article here:
http://arachnoid.com/randomness/index.html#Investment_Genius

In Striking Shift, Small Investors Flee Stock Market

"According to the Investment Company Institute, which surveys 4,000 households annually, the appetite for stock market risk among American investors of all ages has been declining steadily since it peaked around 2001, and the change is most pronounced in the under-35 age group."

Wow. That's bad... If you can help it, DO NOT pull your money out (unless you are close to retirement). If you are young, you are missing a great opportunity. You know how they say "buy low, sell high"? Well, when do you think that "low" time is?

Read the full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/business/22invest.html?_r=1&ref=business

Read This, Retire Rich

It took our in-house financial guru decades to learn these wealth-building rules. It'll take you about 10 minutes
By: Ben Stein

Many years ago, when I first started filming Win Ben Stein's Money, my makeup artist was named Suzie. As Suzie combed, straightened, and powdered, I was often reading the Wall Street Journal or Barron's or talking on the phone with my pal Phil DeMuth about investments. At least once a week, Suzie would set her jaw firmly and say, "I've got to learn all about this investing thing."


Read the full article here: www.menshealth.com/menswealth/mw_stein.html

S&P 500: Total and Inflation-Adjusted Historical Returns

Historical prices for the Standard & Poor's 500 stock-market index can be obtained from websites like Yahoo Finance, using the ^GSPC ticker, or Google Finance, with .INX. Yahoo can even graph the series since 1950. Those numbers, and their corresponding graphs, are useful for evaluating the past performance of stock investments, because the S&P500 index is well regarded as a proxy for the large-cap stock market. Nevertheless, to study the real profitability of the market, we need to average and graph not only the price, but the effect of dividend distributions and inflation as well. That is the purpose of this work.

See the full article