“First I was bullish, then bearish, then brokish.” – Milton Berle Common Sense Reader Mailbag: I completely sold out of the stock market. Now I’m scared I made the wrong decision and I’m going to miss out on future gains. What should I do now? This is a question I’ve heard a lot over the last…

“More money has been lost reaching for yield than at the point of a gun.” – Raymond DeVoe Jr. In his article this week for the Wall Street Journal, Brett Arends goes over some of the dumbest money moves that people routinely make. One of them is reaching for yield. It’s hard to find high…

“Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.” – Steve Maraboli While it can be interesting and thought-provoking to debate and complain about the politics in this country, on a personal level it doesn’t really affect your…

While most investors have the ability and common sense to create their own investment plan, many of us simply have better things to do with our time than paying significant attention to our investment portfolio.  It does take time and effort.  Plus, really smart people know their limitations. As I’ve touched on before, the biggest risk we…

“Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.” – Warren Buffett “Renting space in my head to CNBC seems like a bad use of square footage.” – Carl Richards With March Madness in full swing and upsets at every turn I’m sure there are many people out…

“Risk is what is left over…after you have thought of everything.” – Carl Richards “Risk is low when investors behave prudently and high when they don’t.” – Howard Marks In the world of high finance, risk is a word you hear on a daily basis. Risk measurement, risk parity, risk controls, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns….

In my post that looked at housing as an investment I showed historical data going all the way back to 1880 on the investment returns in the housing sector. Then I looked at some of the investment characteristics on housing including the net expenses you pay and its low liquidity when you need to sell. I…

If you have been following the financial news this week you have seen more mentions of the tiny country of Cyprus than ever before. This is a tale of debt, bailouts, bank deposits and rich Russians looking for a tax haven. I won’t bore you with the details (feel free to read here and here…

A single friend recently asked for some advice on life insurance. It seems that his insurance agent for his home and car was trying to talk him into getting a life insurance policy. Having no financial expertise he wanted my take. Obviously as a single male with no beneficiaries to worry about this was a…

“If you spend 13 minutes a year trying to predict the economy, you have wasted 10 minutes.” – Peter Lynch Many investors assume that the stock market anticipates economic developments. Or that the latest GDP number has a huge effect on the market’s movements. Over the long term there is virtually zero correlation between the…