Simple Minded Investor

You aren't smarter than the market. It really is that simple. So you think we are headed for a recession and the market is going in the tank. You aren't alone. There are plenty of other investors out there with the same idea. And your opinions are already reflected in the current market price of stocks. While you could turn out to be right, it is equally or more likely you are wrong. Guessing what will happen next in the stock market is not an investment strategy, its a gambling strategy. The only advantage it has over Vegas is that the investment analysts and financiers usually take a smaller amount off the top than the casinos do. So what should you do? The answer depends on whether you are a buyer or a seller. And that has nothing to do with what you think the market is going to do. It is a question of where you are in the investment cycle. If you are adding to your investments then you are a buyer. If you are at a point where you are moving money out of the stock market,...

CNN's Walter Upgreave today made clear why taking investment advice from the media is a bad idea. In his column today he takes a contrary view of "dollar cost averaging". The dead giveaway is this line: "But while dollar-cost averaging has risen to the level of accepted truth in many circles, it isn’t the magic bullet it’s made out to be. Indeed, some of the claims are simply an illusion ." Put another way, his job is to provide something interesting for us to read and repeating conventional wisdom won't get you many readers. But there is a reason why dollar cost averaging is conventional wisdom and Upgreave is doing a huge disservice by encouraging people to ignore it. Sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong, but, if you really understand the role of investment mix or dollar cost averaging in risk management, you realize that Upgreave's argument has no merit. Here is the nut of his argument: "Over the course of the year, you would have actually ...

You are not smarter than the market. Accepting this basic fact is the first step toward successful investing. That is counterintuitive to some people. There are lots of people out there who want to "beat the market". They hire financial advisers who claim that they will help them accomplish this allusive goal. There are also people out there who want to win the lottery, they buy lottery tickets. In both cases, you hear a lot about the "winners". What you don't hear is that there are a lot more losers and the odds are you will be one of them. Now, financial advisers will argue that what they do is not really gambling because they can control the outcome. They claim that by being "smarter" they give you a leg up on the typical investor. That isn't really true because the market price of stocks in not set by the "typical investor". Prices are set by the collective wisdom of market professionals, many of whom manage billions of dollars each. ...