“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…

“From financial history and from my own experience, I long ago concluded that regression to the mean is the most powerful law in financial physics: Periods of above-average performance are inevitably followed by below-average returns, and bad times inevitably set the stage for surprisingly good performance.” – Jason Zwieg Investors love to tell themselves stories…

“Common sense is not so common.” – Voltaire Here’s a really interesting business story about Hebert Dow (founder of Dow Chemical) that was featured on Quora this week: Herbert Dow founded Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan when he invented a way to produce bromine cheaply. He sold the chemical for industrial purposes all over the…

“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.” – Albert Einstein A recent Gallup study showed that only 30% of American workers feel engaged or inspired by their jobs. That leaves 70% who are not reaching their full potential. And about 52% said that they put in time and effort, but just don’t have energy or…

“Stocks are the thing to own over time. Productivity will increase and stocks will increase with it. There are only a few things you can do wrong. One is to buy or sell at the wrong time. Paying high fees is the other way to get killed. The best way to avoid both of these…

“I think it’s important to be diversified not only across different companies, but across different industries and, most importantly, across different countries.” – Mark Mobius

“Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies.” – Warren Buffett In Vanguard’s most recent newsletter they laid out their four timeless principles to help you reach your investing objectives. They are: 1. Goals: Create clear, appropriate investment goals. 2. Balance: Develop a suitable asset allocation using broadly diversified funds. 3. Cost: Minimize…

“A budget tells us what we can’t afford but it doesn’t keep us from buying it.” – William Feather To invest you first must be able to save.  I like to think that an investment portfolio starts out as a saving portfolio. And to save you must first be able to limit or track your…