One reader had the following questions in regards to controlling emotions when making investment decisions: How long did it take you to be disciplined to follow your trend change in the contexts of all your emotions that a market may be just “”too high”” when it turns positive to reinvest? Is that still a very powerful force? You even seem …
Reader Q + A: Buy And Hold
Reader Peter had these comments recently: I always enjoy your daily Blog and I do follow some of your investment principles. Keep up the good work. Today I have a question about “Buy & Hold.” There has been considerable press lately (since the market chaos during the last year) about the death of buy and hold. Have you done any …
Sunday Musings: The 529 Problem
Several clients of mine have been involved with 529 college savings plans. The love affair with these instruments came to an end last year when many realized the severe limitations of getting out of invested positions within the plan guide lines. Reader Chris summed it up this way: What would you do about funds in a 529? I feel helpless …
The Naked Truth
A few days ago, Mish at Global Economics wrote a nice piece called “Long Term Buy and Hold Is Still Bad Advice.” I want to hone in on a few paragraphs outlining well known pitfalls when investing that are very important; however, most investors are either not aware of them or don’t pay attention: Why Is Bad Advice So Common? …
No Load Fund/ETF Tracker updated through 6/25/2009
My latest No Load Fund/ETF Tracker has been posted at:http://www.successful-investment.com/newsletter-archive.phpIn a repeat of last week, the major indexes closed slightly lower. Our Trend Tracking Index (TTI) for domestic funds/ETFs has now crossed its trend line (red) to the upside by +2.46% keeping the current buy signal intact. The effective date was June 3, 2009. The international index has now broken …
Staying The Course
The Fed left key short-term interest rates alone as expected and hinted that the economy, while stabilizing, does not require any rate hikes in the near futures. While that should have been good news, Wall Street reacted somewhat negative, and the major indexes surrendered their early gains, as the above chart shows. Meeting anticipation apparently wasn’t a good thing. Right …