When we have success in our lives we tend to attribute that success to skill or hard work. When something goes wrong and we fail, we attribute it to bad luck. Sound familiar? I know I do this all the time. It’s easier than admitting that there was some luck involved in our wins and…

“The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.” – Warren Buffett Just a simple post today.  These are my common sense investment rules. Common Sense Rules That Will Ruin Your Investment Portfolio 1. Trying to consistently “beat the market” 2. Trying to forecast the market in…

“What we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.” – Benjamin Disraeli The Wall Street Journal ran an article last week chronicling the stories of young buyers who are stepping up their investments in real estate by, “skipping the starter home and betting heavily on high-end real estate.” We’ve seen this movie…

“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.  I can’t recall ever once having seen the name of a market timer on Forbes’ annual list of the richest people in the world.  If it were truly possible to predict corrections,…

“There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.” – Will Rogers Many of us take great joy in pointing out the ineptitude of the government. No matter which way you lean politically, you probably wouldn’t get too many arguments if you were to claim that the government…

“Instead of concentrating on the central issue of creating sensible long-term asset-allocation targets, investors too frequently focus on the unproductive diversions of security selection and market timing.” – David Swensen “One of the things you learn about asset allocation is that the unemotional defeat the emotional over time by fading their highs and lows, their…

Take a look at this really great new tool from the New York Times (click to enlarge): Like most financial calculators, you enter in your basic information (salary, % saved, salary increase, expected returns and time horizon). But, this one has the added benefit of showing you how your results would be different if you…

“Everyone has the brainpower to follow the stock market.  If you made it through fifth grade math, you can do it.” – Peter Lynch We often hear financial advisors and investment strategists use statistical terms like standard deviation, co-variance matrix, efficient frontier and risk-adjusted returns (I’ll even admit to using some of these terms myself…

“If we become increasingly humble about how little we know, we may be more eager to search.” – Sir John Templeton John Templeton was one of the greatest investors of all-time. He was a well-known value investor and a natural contrarian who was successful at buying during times of maximum pessimism. Here’s one of his…

“When I was young I thought money was the most important thing in life. Now that I’m old–I know it is.” – Oscar Wilde In my post last week on the mental accounting of your common sense budget, we looked at the differences between your fixed and variable costs to help you prioritize your spending…