As you might expect, there are many ways to invest poorly. Many people tell you to find a professional stock fund manager to get the best returns.
- Is this true?
- How good are they?
- How do I pick a good one?
- How much does it cost?
Active Management
Bane of the investor.
Who’s on my side? – Part 3 – Mutual Fund Managers
What Fund Managers are on your side?
- The expensive ones?
- Those with a great record?
- The cheap ones?
The stakes are high, so it’s important to get this right.
Horse Laugh Time
Bashing index funds is a popular theme, but do the criticisms have value?
There are reasons to prefer index funds (now 18% of funds):
- Supported by academic research.
- Supported by history.
- Most active managers don’t beat the index.
- Index funds have tax advantages and lower fees.
A well-meaning blogger touts the CGM Focus Fund as being spectacularly better than the S&P 500. Let’s give him credit for courage, and then demolish his ideas.
Shouldn’t Investing be Fun?
Should investing be fun or a grim, relentless, chore?
There’s a lot at stake depending on how we answer:
- If it’s unpleasant, maybe we won’t do it.
- If it’s fun, maybe it’s a waste, like lottery tickets.
How Do I Start Investing?
Saving enough for retirement, putting money aside for your kid’s college education, figuring out what you need when and how to get it – these are daunting. Where do you begin?
The Smart Penny #2: Coins that Predict the Future
By the end of this post, if you aren’t convinced, I’ll sell you my “smart penny” which correctly predicted whether a stock would go up or down for ten days straight. If you buy the penny, which I will try very hard to persuade you not to do, I’ll get a new batch of pennies and start flipping, If I have about a thousand pennies, one of them is likely to “predict” ten stock results, just by the law of averages.