Investing

What do smart chess players and stupid criminals have in common?

At the doctor’s office the other day, my doctor was supposed to review some recent test results with me. Instead of explaining the test results to me however, she called someone else to consult and then shared to results of her conversation with me. My husband felt more confident in her as a result.  His [...]

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So you think you can beat the system.

When I was researching my reflexive or reflective brain post and doing the 10 vs 100 balls exercise, I thought I should be able to do more than just follow the probability. I figured I was capable of figuring out the system and so should be able to pick the right ball – the classic [...]

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Intentional or Intuitive? What drives your investment decisions?

Anyone who has read the basics of investing knows that the secret is to buy low & then sell high. Sounds simple enough right, but over and over again we do the exact opposite.  Why? There are plenty of investing scams. When we read about them in the news we are surprised that people can’t [...]

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Why you should not use your 401k

Max out your 401k… It is one of the most commonly given pieces of advice by many financial experts. With the 2011 401k contribution limit of $16,500, it IS one of the best ways to save a good chunk of money for your golden days. But not everyone should use their 401k to save for [...]

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Are passive investors smarter than active investors?

Active investors are dumber than passive investors. A new study says so. Passive investing is boring, active investing is much more interesting… Active investing is the only way to beat the market… Passive investing is for those who don’t know/care about investing… I have heard all of these in any debate about active vs passive [...]

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Do you know your target retirement fund’s glide path?

Do you know how your Target date fund’s glide path compare with other target date funds? Do you even know what “glide path” is? I didn’t. Not until I started looking seriously about investing into the target date funds. I was looking to open a ROTH IRA, so I could choose any brokerage. Initially I [...]

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Donor Advised funds – What, how, why & where?

We finally opened a Donor advised fund. I have been meaning to do this for quite sometime, should have done it at least at the end of 2010 to take advantage of it in 2010 taxes. Oh well… better now than never. In researching about these funds, I learned a lot. So I thought I [...]

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Vanguard vs Fidelity – Which is better?

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I am trying to open a ROTH IRA for my emergency funds (will write a separate post to defend myself on this ). Right now, I have my employer sponsored accounts – 401k, employee stock purchase plan in Fidelity and personal investment account in Vanguard. When I initially opened the Vanguard account 5 years ago, [...]

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Covered Calls

This post was written by Robert at The College Investor, a personal finance and investment blog for young adults. If you invest in stocks, you may want to consider writing covered calls as a way to generate income on your positions. A call is an option contract to buy a specified number of  shares at [...]

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