“The most important thing you can have is a good strategic asset allocation mix. So, what the investor needs to do is have a balanced, structured portfolio – a portfolio that does well in different environments….we don’t know that we’re going to win. We have to have diversified bets.” – Ray Dalio This is one of…

Yesterday I posted my investment lessons in the 2013 Year in Review (Part 1). Part 2 is some other odds and ends from the year that was. Enjoy.

“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.” – Walter Elliott These are my investment lessons and takeaways from an interesting year in 2013.

“Simplifying is generally the strategy of people who view the world in terms of systems.” – Scott Adams Every year people make New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, save more, spend less or better their career prospects. According to Forbes, about 8% of these people actually achieve these resolutions. Tracking the drop off in traffic…

“Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.” – Herbert Spencer

“Successful investing can almost be easy: Avoid harmful “accidents” and do what will achieve your own most important long-term objectives. The very human irony is that learning this lesson can take so many years that by the time we “get it,” it may be too late to use the lesson because the powers of compounding…

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people over a broad subject matter area who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.” – Charlie Munger These are the best books I’ve read in 2013. INVESTING Backstage Wall Street by Josh Brown Brown spent a number of years working as a commissioned broker…

“It’s one of my first principles that we never know where we’re going – given the unreliability of macro forecasting – but we ought to know where we are.” – Howard Marks Reader mailbag: I read your article about stock levels (New Round Numbers! What Does it All Mean?) and I’m curious how you could…

“There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.” – Charles Cotton I was reading the book Think Twice by Michael Mauboussin recently (great book for anyone interested in behavioral psychology and how your brain processes information in a counterintuitive way) and he shared a story…

“If you’re investing for a lifetime – and you should be, saving for retirement and educating your kids along the way – if you’re 20 years old now, you should be thinking 60 or 65 years as your time horizon.” – John Bogle